Imminence
by Stalker of Stories
Summary: ABANDONED Time-travel AU Falling into the toad oil pond was a big mistake, but soon Naruto finds himself enjoying what it brought him. Every cloud has a silver lining; just don't forget to watch the stormy side. The past is a dark and scary place.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.**

**Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more**

Chapter 1

He really should have paid attention to the old frog, Naruto decided immediately. It was the middle of the night, Myobokuzan was deep in sleep, and he had been stupid. He was supposed to ONLY attempt to mold sage chakra when the old frog was there. Needless to say, he wasn't.

To make matters worse, Naruto had tripped over a loose... well, something. The fact of the matter was, he had tripped straight into the frog oil pond, and he couldn't swim in it.

As he felt his skin moving, he cursed himself. How could he bring Sasuke back like this? How could he avenge his teacher? He was going to be a stone toad at the bottom of a frog oil pond, and there was nothing that could change that fact.

The last thought he had before blanking out was a simple, _Damn..._

* * *

Conversely, the first thing he thought upon opening his eyes to a bright midsummer sky and familiar trees was, _Thank the gods..._

And he was certain that some god truly was responsible. Wasn't he supposed to be dead, turned into a stone toad totem to decorate the yard for training humans to mold sage chakra? The fact that he was seeing a sky and could feel the gentle breeze on his skin was enough to convince him that _something_ had happened to prevent it. He knew those trees so well, too. They were the trees of Hi no Kuni, and most particularly they were the trees surrounding Konohagakure no sato, his home.

Why he was in Konoha anyway? Did the toads reject him for disobeying and trying to train on his own? It could be, but they could have given him _some_ warning.

He'd always been impatient; it was part of who Uzumaki Naruto had crafted himself to be. The villagers didn't care if he was mean or kind, polite or rude, or even if he was purple with yellow polka-dots and green hair – he had certainly tried. So he had made himself at least seem to deserve a small amount of the punishment they dished out, for his own peace of mind. He'd always known his father had been a hero of the Kyuubi attack, and his mother died giving birth to him. He couldn't stand the thought that he could possibly be punished for some fault in the parents; if he deserved it, he couldn't blame them even in the back of his mind.

Sighing, Naruto hefted his arms to get into a sitting position... and noticed something very disturbing. Well, it was something he realized he should have noticed right off the bat if he hadn't been so relieved to be alive. His arms were short, and his clothes were feeling very much baggy about him. On the bright side, he could tell that he hadn't been turned into a frog, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to bend his arms quite that way.

Taking a quick stock of his body, visually, Naruto was horrified to find that his size was on par with that of a small child. Like, say, himself at age six, seven tops, which was the size of a normal child at age five if he was lucky. Grimacing, he pulled himself to his feet, not bothering to try and stop the large orange pants from falling off of his body, not even the boxers since his shirt went down past his knees anyway. Instead, he was practical as he tried to be when possible, and ripped the pants off at the knee. At his current size, they would make good pants, if very baggy on his small frame, and the ripped material could easily be ripped further to make a tied belt. His jacket had to be lost, but the t-shirt... he'd manage. His hitai-ate, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found, but he could get a new one from Tsunade easily enough.

Heaving a sigh, Naruto took his first step – barefoot given that his sandals were about a dozen sizes to large – he noticed an interesting turn of events; he was very unbalanced. That wasn't to say he was totally uncoordinated, just that he felt like a stranger in his own skin. He hadn't been this short in... how long had it been? Eight, maybe nine years. He just needed to adjust, that was all.

Before he'd even gotten away from the clearing, he was already getting the rhythm of it. The young genin (when would he ever take another chuunin exam?) was confident that he could make his way to Konoha in mere minutes at this pace; he knew the clearing well, had often escaped to it as a child when the village was too much. It was just outside the training areas and within what was technically still Konoha, so he knew precisely where he was. He could find Tsunade and get her to fix it.

Except that when the village proper came into view, Naruto immediately noticed something was very off. The Hokage Monument was missing two very important faces.

Naruto prided himself on being reasonable in the weirdest of situations. When Mizuki had chased him, only a few minutes after being informed that he, Uzumaki Naruto, was hated not by his own virtue or any one person's but because he had the most powerful demon sealed into his gut, he had stayed behind to help Iruka instead of running off for a second time. Upon seeing Myobokuzan, he hadn't wigged out like Sakura probably would have (well, he thought she would, but Sakura had never been entirely predictable in the best of circumstances) and had instead been properly amazed, but still ready to train.

That pride, however, wasn't doing him much good, because the idea of the Monument without the faces of the man who had cursed him with the fox and the woman he had come to think of as a mother of sorts (even if he had only seen her face up there for a little while) was... well, it pretty much stopped all thought process then and there.

After several minutes' worth of panicking, Naruto calmed slightly, enough to know that, whatever was happening, he had to get to the Hokage Tower, especially if it was a genjutsu. Going to where he would be most expected to would mean an earlier release. If it _wasn't_ a genjutsu... well, he _really_ didn't want to think of what that might mean, both for him and the world at large. However, being a shinobi, he did keep that possibility in the back of his mind, just in case he found out that that _was_ the case so he wouldn't be running around like a headless chicken.

The gates to the village proper were open, as was normal for midday, and Naruto managed to slip in behind some merchants without getting noticed. He barely noticed that the shinobi guarding the gates seemed terribly weary, and there seemed to be more of Konoha's forces hopping from rooftop to rooftop going places than usual. Whoever set up the genjutsu had apparently only seen it at it's most chaotic.

Well, maybe not MOST chaotic since the attack by Sound and Sand was far worse.

Naruto ran through the city as fast as his small body would go, which was actually pretty fast since he charged each leap with chakra. It had taken all of five seconds to realize how the size and lack of physical strength of his current state would affect his chakra reserves, but he could easily reason that, even if he _didn't_ have the Kyuubi to draw on, he figured he still had enough chakra for maybe the average jounin, simply because he was Naruto. There was this sort of tingle, though, in the air around him that made him feel like he could go on for quite a while.

When a hand grabbed him by the collar of his too-large shirt, Naruto had to top abruptly before he choked himself... or ripped said shirt and had to go topless. That would be stupid. He was promptly dropped back onto the rooftop he had been about to leap from and turned quickly on his heel, leaping back several steps to eye his illusory opponent. The white eyes with bulging veins screamed Hyuuga, but it wasn't one that he knew, though if he looked, Naruto figured he looked sort of like a less girly version of Neji, like most of the male Hyuuga in their teens did. The chuunin vest was a nice touch.

"A bit young to be jumping on rooftops, kid," the Hyuuga snorted, turning his Byakugan off. "You aren't even old enough to be in the academy yet; you can't be more than five years old! Shouldn't you be walking with the civilians? Rooftops are restricted access, shinobi only."

Naruto scowled, which he knew would look utterly ridiculous on his childish face. "I can use the roofs just as well as you can, bastard," he snapped irritably. The guy's attitude definitely reminded him of Neji, pre-ass-whooping. He turned to leave and sensed that the hand was coming back and ducked under it, rolling away between the guy's legs. "Stop that!"

White eyes locked with cerulean, the former holding a sort of curiosity. He thought he heard the word "henge" but he couldn't be sure. So the illusion was thinking that he was under an illusion? No, that made no sense what-so-ever. Some shinobi of the genjutsu had stopped running and were watching the scene with thinly veiled interest. If this weren't an illusion, Naruto could understand that interest; he was, after all, child-sized and standing up to a Hyuuga. He had also dodged said bastard's attempt to grab him, which had been very quick. But it _was_ a genjutsu, and Naruto wanted to get whatever was supposed to happen over with before...

Before what? And why would he be under a genjutsu in the first place? He sighed internally, but kept his senses open. The slight hum in the air that seemed to flow straight through him buzzed suddenly and he jerked in surprise, finding that the Hyuuga flew by him from behind and through who he thought was the Hyuuga. Now that he looked Naruto could sort of see through the simple academy-style clone.

This inspired him as to how he could escape. Molding his hands easily into a ram seal, he murmured, "Tajuu kage bunshin no jutsu," and smirked as quite a few plumes of smoke went up around him. He hadn't made too many, though more than he had meant to, and felt the humming grow in volume as he molded his chakra for some reason, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the Hyuuga and surrounding shinobi (the group had increased by quite a bit) were gaping at the display for reason unknown. They were part of the illusion; they knew he wasn't really a little kid!

The clones scattered in all directions, the real Naruto going on a path to his right instead of heading directly to the Hokage's Tower. Several of the other ninjas jumped in and made grabs at the clones, and all were especially surprised when they actually grabbed something.

"They aren't illusions!" One of the shinobi gaped as he grasped the arm of a clone. Naruto watched as he clung to the wall using chakra. That seemed a lot easier than it should have been. "That kid... he used an A-ranked jutsu! Anyone know who he is?"

"Let go, you bastards!" The clones all shouted at once, all trying to wrench their grasps from the men in various manners. Naruto grinned. They would never be able to tell him apart from the clones even if they knew what to look for.

"Let's take them all to Hokage-sama," a kunoichi posited. "If we can't tell them from the original, we can't know which one to bring. He doesn't look like he'd tell us himself, either. Surely the Hokage will know who this kid is." Naruto furrowed his brow. If this was a genjutsu... no, he shouldn't even be thinking about the hows and the whys. He was supposed to be dead, but he wasn't. He was supposed to be 15, but he wasn't. He would let his clones go and do it, he knew they would come to the same conclusion (they were essentially him, after all) and when whatever was to happen happened, they could dismiss themselves and revert back to him.

Maybe all that training with Ero-sennin _wasn't_ just a big waste like Sasuke had made it seem. While the toad sage had neglected to ever mention the best part of his favorite technique, he had helped Naruto cultivate the reality of the clones. They already looked like him, thought like him, and acted like him, but Naruto had gone beyond the usual and even managed to make it seem like his clones had chakra coils to even a Byakugan (which took a hell of a lot more effort and chakra control than most would be willing to go to when theirs was as bad as Naruto's).

The clones had also done him a favor beyond winning his escape and making it possible to scout out this weird genjutsu (he didn't dare question why he could use jutsu at all in it); he got to see just how intricate it was. Mind, he'd never find a way out on his own, but if a clone made it out, they could dismiss and tell him how... would it work like that? He didn't know, didn't care. Naruto just wanted to get back to training at Myobokuzan so he could kick the ass of whoever killed Jiraiya.

The assembled shinobi passed off clones to people who were either heading for the Hokage's tower or else had nothing to do, most carrying two pint-sized clones at a time. Meanwhile, Naruto walked the streets like a civilian before getting back to the gate and dashing out as fast as possible. He would keep away from the Tower for the moment and make sure that in his miniaturized form – he had a feeling that he really had become a kid, physically – wouldn't affect him overly much.

* * *

In the Hokage Tower, a crowd of twelve children sat in various positions on the floor, looking bored. All of the identical children had spiky blond hair, more yellow than anything else, that was sticking out in all directions. Bright blue eyes, sort of between sky and ocean blue, with horizontal slits for pupils shown brightly under the yellow fringe. Those eyes were deep-set and ringed thinly with red, set just above whisker-like scars on the cheeks, three pair.

A highly distinctive appearance, to be certain. The shinobi present couldn't help but think the brat had some sort of doujutsu, though what they didn't know. Not one of the three big ones, certainly.

They were all completely identical, and none of them were the real boy they mirrored. Not that the four ANBU, one Hyuuga, and one Hokage knew that; they figured they had captured all of the clones as well as the real boy.

"Very talented for a child," the Hokage nodded solemnly. When the group of children had seen him as they were carried in, they had gaped at the sight of the aging man in Hokage's robes. He was a older man, his hair thinning on top and his face starting to wrinkle a bit, but he exuded an aura of strength that made it apparent why he was Hokage. To Naruto, he was also very much dead. "And you are sure there are no illusions on him? Not even a simple henge?"

"I'm positive, Hokage-sama," the Hyuuga reported, the same Hyuuga who had initially caught the kid. "When I first saw a small child – not even old enough to start at the Academy – hopping over the rooftops like a seasoned shinobi, I activated my Byakugan immediately to make sure. He is indeed a child. Around perhaps five years, I would wager. I also cannot tell the difference between the real child and his clones; the chakra split must have been equal between them all. How any child can have such reserves is beyond me."

"We're right here, you know," one clone snorted, adjusting its position to lay out on the floor at the same instant all its fellows did. "Asking each other questions won't tell you anything about us, will it?" Actually, Naruto was wondering what the creator of the genjutsu already did know. Obviously that he was from Konoha, but aside from that... Well, Naruto had never heard of any genjutsu like this one, but it wasn't saying much considering genjutsu were his worst techniques... discounting his version of the henge, though his way wasn't quite so illusory.

So that probably didn't count as a genjutsu anyway, but still!

The Hokage chuckled, smiling slightly at the crowd of clones, looking for all intents and purposes like a kindly grandfather or favorite uncle. "Forgive me for that. My, you are a spirited one, aren't you? A strong, talented boy," he said. Naruto knew the tactic, the "get the kid to loosen him up through compliments" trick, but it was still working on the clones, at least a little bit, much to their consternation. "Would you mind telling me which of you is the real one?"

A clone to the left sent an impish grin at the Hokage. "The number you are trying to reach is unavailable at the moment. Please leave your name and number after the beep," the clone informed him easily. "Beep."

The Hyuuga seemed angry. "You mean that you are _all_ clones? That Konoha shinobi failed to catch a _child_?"

"Yup," a third clone replied. "Some kunoichi almost had him, but he swapped with one of the other clones and got away. That one 'popped'. It's pretty pathetic when you think about it; I mean, there aren't very many of us, and we suck at suppressing our chakra."

Before anyone in the room could blink, clone #3 had a kunai sticking out of its head, and then it blinked before poofing out of existence. The kunai clattered to the ground. After a moment, Hyuuga – who had been the one to throw said kunai in a fit of rage – stepped forward and picked the kunai up again, sending a withering glare at all of the clones who just grinned impishly at him. They had all learned the lesson of what a shadow clone could do long ago, so they all knew that the original copy had just downloaded the knowledge of the illusion containing a living (and at least twenty years younger) Sandaime Hokage.

"Hizashi, you will control yourself," the Hokage ordered with ease, his eyes sliding away from the young man to the cluster of clone-children before him. "How much longer will you all last? For a child to create so many, you must not have very much chakra remaining."

The clones looked pensive for a moment, all sitting again instead of lounging before one of them nodded and glanced up. "The boss split his chakra about thirty ways so that he couldn't be caught by the Byakugan, but his reserves would have replenished by the time we got here," clone #5 explained. "I'd say we all have enough chakra to last the rest of the day if we don't actually do anything." For Naruto it wasn't exactly an impressive amount, but even though his size had certainly effected his reserves, the clones found they had more chakra to mold than they had expected, and it didn't feel quite as blue as usual, nor did it feel purple or red like when the Kyuubi chakra in his system increased. Normally such a small quantity of clones could last at twice as long provided Naruto didn't go to sleep when doing an even split.

A few hours was still more than most could pass off – for the few who could use the technique was ease, the average was ten clones for ten minutes at an even split, fewer with less without it – and the shock was evident on the face of the Hokage. It was well known that Naruto was a chakra monster though, so his clones couldn't see why such surprise would be incorporated to the illusion.

"I see," the Professor turned to his large windows that overlooked Konoha. "Hizashi, leave if you would, and don't mention the boy to anyone. I will speak with him alone." Alone, as the clones knew, did not count the four ANBU members who were hiding in the room at strategic points to take out any threats to the safety of their Kage. "Hawk, Cat, Horse, Dragon, that means you as well." Or maybe it did.

In the space of ten seconds, the Naruto clones found themselves sitting on the floor of the Hokage's personal office (a place they were all intimately familiar with) with only the monkey summoner himself for company. They all fidgeted slightly; it was such a strange illusion! No one knew that the Sandaime had been in the habit of dismissing his ANBU guards when Naruto came to visit, not even Iruka. Of course, the Sandaime-genjutsu wouldn't know it either, but it was still an odd coincidence.

Actually, most of the clones had come to a conclusion, one that was very strange, but it was a conclusion none the less. Besides, Naruto had never been much for logic, common sense, and the like because quite simply they had never actually applied to him. Common sense dictated that newborn babies did not have demons sealed into them; logic dictated that small children were not ostracized by adults and children alike. They dictated that teenagers didn't die and wake up in a body that would fit the average five year old. Or that he have these weird rings around his eyes like Gaara, let alone that they were slit without Kyuubi chakra, and sideways at that! There was no logic to his situation, even the skewed Naruto-logic that applied only to him. If he had somehow been saved by the frogs, he would not have been captured by enemies unknown and placed in a Konoha genjutsu that was so weird.

And the circumstances were so unbelievable that, really, what other options remained?

"Hey, Ojii-san, are there are any jutsu that take you back in time?" One of the clones asked. Clone number five had "poofed" himself to give the conclusion to Naruto as it decided that it was thought out enough to share. Any clones thinking of something else were automatically updated to the situation and found the conclusion no stranger than anything else in the life of Uzumaki Naruto.

"Time travel techniques? None that I have heard of," the old man blinked. Obviously he hadn't expected to have that be the first thing the clones would state, but they merely deflated. So then there was – as of yet – no explanation. But time travel... it seemed the only way. And wasn't Neji's dad named Hyuuga Hizashi? That chuunin had rather looked like Neji after all. "What brought that on?"

Clone number two sent a look to his compatriots – if clones could be considered as such – before taking the helm. If the others thought of something, it would be mentioned. Naruto didn't hold much stock in social graces anyway.

"Just curious," Clone number two shrugged. "You weren't saying anything, you know? Wanted to break the ice and all that. What did you want to know?" It was better to be in this position in his opinion.

"Yes, yes, I was simply thinking," the old man laughed it off. His pipe was in his mouth for a puff before he continued. "You are quite remarkable; your chakra reserves must be immense. I'm afraid that I am at a loss as to your name as well; are you an Academy student?"

"No," not a lie. Naruto had graduated from the Academy going on three years ago. "He has never been to Konoha before today." If the quick conclusion was correct, this would also not be a lie. "But he is a really strong ninja anyway!" The clone that said this pumped his fist in the air. That could be taken as childish boasting, but given they had already revealed their individual life-spans, it should be little surprise.

"Yes, I'm sure he is," Sarutobi chuckled, getting into the "clones talking about their boss as a whole other person" thing. "Though I do still need your name young man."

Uzumaki Naruto was out of the question. Mostly because, in case this was a genjutsu (they thought not however), and whoever had done it didn't know who they were dealing with (it seemed they didn't, in the small likelihood that this was a genjutsu), then it would be stupid to let them know. But if he _were_ in a genjutsu – again, unlikely – then the chances of the perpetrator not knowing him... well, anyway, he also couldn't say Uzumaki Naruto because that would raise alarms when he was born if he were right.

Of course, when he was a child he had asked the Hokage the name of his father, and the name he received was a lie. That person did not exist.

"Kazama Arashi," He replied. It was the false name that the Sandaime had given him for his father, and Naruto had found out very quickly that, not only was there no Kazama listed on the memorial stone, but there was not Kazama clan in Konoha or any Kazama Arashi who had been involved in anything to do with Konoha.

He realized, after a moment, that he had just... _changed_ something, if this was real.

"Well, Arashi-kun," the Hokage smiled benevolently at him. "I think we can do something for you. I'm assuming you do not have a place to stay?" He paused to pick up a pen and two scrolls and wrote in them while the clones sat quietly on the floor, wondering what on earth he was doing. He finished one, scattered sand on the ink to increase the drying speed, and wrote out the other just as quickly before they were both rolled up. "We can have another talk later, but for now it's getting late. One of you give this blue scroll to the chuunin outside my door and lead her to your creator. Bring the green one to room 207 at the Academy tomorrow; I will send someone to show you the way."

"I already know the way Jii-san," clone #7 grumbled, but he pocketed the green scroll while all the rest vanished themselves. He then picked up the blue one and grinned. "Thanks Jii-san. I'll talk to you later then."

It did not occur to the clone that he was being let go too easily.

As the door was closed, the Hokage reclined in his chair, puffing slowly on his pipe. He didn't even twitch as a shadow jumped down from the ceiling. "Room 207, Hokage-sama?" The ANBU snickered. "I think he's a bit beyond the genin exam at this point. Why are you bothering?"

"Now now Falcon," he turned a sly smile at the bird-faced ANBU. "I want to see how he acts around children his own age. A five year old child capable of an A-ranked kinjutsu... I'm curious. You'll look after him of course, won't you?"

The ANBU spluttered. "M-me? I though I was supposed to apprentice that Hatake kid! Now I'm taking on a team?" He sounded almost like he was pouting. "You're no fun Ojii-sama." He paused a moment. "But seriously, that kid... we'll he's obviously really a kid, but what sort of kid comes out of training at five with those skills? And who would have sent him? Plus his eyes... they look kinda like Gamabunta's, only more slitted like a cat's..."

"Yes, I saw," the Hokage nodded. "That's why I want you to take after him. It might need a seal for control, and who better to watch over two genius children with their own special bloodlines than Konoha's greatest genius?"

The ANBU shrugged under his black cloak in an almost embarrassed manner. "If that's what you want, Hokage-sama, I'll do my best I suppose. Still, something about that kid... it's strange. I've never heard of a Kazama clan, and the only doujutsu are the Sharingan and Byakugan. Unless you believe Jiraiya about that kid with the Rinnegan I mean."

The Hokage did not respond and instead puffed on his pipe, glancing out his window. Only time would tell the truth about Kazama Arashi.

* * *

Naruto almost fell off his tree when the first clone dispersed in the Hokage's office, informing him that, whatever was happening, the Sandaime was involved in some way (even if it was only his image). Luckily, he was a good thirty feet up and managed to catch a branch rather than fall all the way down. True, he wouldn't have _died_ or anything, but he would still rather not have to heal up after that.

He had already seen his altered appearance in a shop window and had attempted to apply a henge to his eyes that didn't stick before putting one of his entire body. It tingled a bit as he manipulated the chakra into his special henge – the same process as oiroke no jutsu except that he wasn't trying to look like a naked woman – which took more chakra than the one he knew Konohamaru and everyone else used. It hid his eyes, but he'd made the rest of the henge him – just a year or so older.

The eyes... they were a bit freaky looking. It looked like his eyes had been rotated and he had started going Kyuubi or something and then taken some red eyeliner around his eyes. That, of course, was not the case. He hadn't _really_ looked at himself until he'd found an empty training ground, dropped his henge, and taken a look in the small pond there.

Then he had started running up a tree and almost fallen off as the popped clone told him about the Sandaime's image. That was... unexpected. More so than being able to avoid his illusory captors. Already he was wondering if this _were_ a genjutsu.

Still, he checked his chakra control and even formed a rasengan before the bigger shocker came. His clones thought he had gone back in time. It was unbelievable unless one applied Naruto-logic to the problem, which – as it just so happened – Naruto was an expert at doing. As a matter of fact, he had been doing just that ever since before he was kicked out of the orphanage to live in the streets. He became an expert in that month before the Sandaime finally caught up to him and set him up in an apartment.

So he had gone back in time, and whenever he used chakra the air buzzed for some reason. Fantastic.

The buzzing air around him didn't bother Naruto until he decided to try to run through the kata Jiraiya had drilled into him on the pond's surface (he would need it, especially if he was really stuck as a midget for a while). The first time he looked down – for the perverted hermit had set him up to try to read a person by the movements of their feet, even if he _was_ bad at it – he had almost fallen through the water. The red around his eyes became more prominent and there was a spidery ring of yellow intruding in the calm blue of his irises.

His own eyes freaked him out. They were worse than how Gaara's looked when Shukaku had taken him over, and he wasn't even using any Kyuubi chakra! His chakra felt too... not red. Hell, it's wasn't even _blue_ feeling, but more greenish. Well, maybe teal or aqua (spending so much time around women with Jiraiya, he had learned the names of colors that, really, could be called "green-ish blue". Not that the women agreed with him).

Luckily, his thoughts didn't have to make sense to anyone but himself, or else he might be in big trouble.

He had about two seconds beyond those thought before all but one clone dispersed and he found out that the remaining was bringing him a scroll and a chuunin who would take him to a place to stay the night before he had to go to the Academy for some reason. He also found out that the clones had given him another name.

Kazama Arashi... he didn't really care for the name, but he had to admit that Naruto sounded like it had been thought up on the spot as well. Really, who named their kid after something in ramen? Granted, it was a gift of the gods, but what reason was there for someone to name their child that? He suspected that the old man had picked the name, or perhaps the Yondaime had.

He was waiting at the shore when his clone and the chuunin – a young woman with deep purple hair and golden eyes – arrived. He took the green scroll and tucked it into his hip-pouch. Unlike everyone else he knew, he didn't keep anything interesting in it yet (Kakashi had porn, the Hokage had free ramen coupons, and Iruka had sweets), but it did make finding what he needed a lot easier.

The clone dispersed.

"Alright gaki," the women tossed her hair back, "my mission is to take you to dinner and then to a hotel for the night. I want you up at seven am sharp in the morning so I can take you to breakfast and then to the Academy. After that you're on your own to ask directions; I'm only in charge of you until you're dropped off, got it?" Naruto nodded. He was used to acerbic words.

And suddenly, she softened up. "Great! Now that that's over with, I'm Mitarashi Kasumi, but you can just call me Kasumi-nee-chan," she ruffled his wild hair (proportionally to his head, it was nearly twice as long as it had been and Naruto couldn't wait until he had a hitai-ate or something to help keep it from his eyes). It was a full one-eighty, and Naruto – no, Arashi – was too dumbfounded to even duck.

"Eto... alright, Kasumi-nee-chan" he blinked his large blue eyes up at her and he could almost see the women about to _squee_ at him.

"Unofficially, you're free to talk to me whenever you like and I might unofficially pick you up after Academy tomorrow when I go in to grab my daughter," she wagged her finger knowingly. "I might also unofficially bring you a bento lunch for your first day at the Academy. Though from what the scroll said... well, you'll find out 'Rashi-kun!"

And so she led him at a regular pace, rather than the jog – for a shinobi that is – which she had followed his clone at back to Konoha. All the way she yammered on about various things from the cherry trees that had just come into bloom to a scouting mission she had been on last week that had been a false alarm to her husband (a special jounin) and daughter (an academy student). From her frosty manner with his clone and in informing him of her mission, he would not have expected her to be such a motherly person.

"You're such a dear, 'Rashi-kun," she sighed. "My daughter could learn a lesson in manners from you. Then again, she _is_ only seven, but you have to figure... well, anyway, what do you want for dinner? It's the Hokage's treat for us both tonight. Kiyoshi," her husband, "was going to get take-out tonight anyway, so it's not like I'm missing anything. He'll probably get a bunch of dango for him and Anko-chan anyway."

Anko... as in Mitarashi Anko? Not that Naru- Arashi would have said it aloud, but he couldn't help but disbelieve that that complete and utter whack-a-doo had a mother like _this_, even if she did have Orochimaru as her sensei. Naruto would have given his right lung for a mother at all, but that was in the past (future, whatever).

"'Rashi-kun? Hello?" He jumped at finding a hand waving in his face. "You kinda spaced out there. Your pupils dilated; it was kinda weird to watch. So, dinner kiddo?"

"Wha- oh, right," he scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. Kasumi almost squealed again, but managed to refrain it seemed. "Um... could we go out for ramen? Please?"

He realized suddenly that seeming like a little kid with far too large of clothing was very helpful as suddenly he found himself engulfed in a hug and Kasumi was promising that she would take him to the best ramen shop and he could have as much ramen as he could eat.

All in all, he didn't much mind being short. For now.

**Author's Note: Hey guys. This is not going to be as long as Harry Potter and the Host Club (as in not even 20 chapters more likely than not), and I've decided it's no pairing (there will be crushes of course, but no pairings). I should be done with it before the end of the school year if I can manage it – we'll see. I will try to be good about updating it and writing it.**

**Just a few notes - Naruto does not know about Jiraiya's book, so he doesn't know the origin of his name. Yes, I'm uncreative with naming Naruto, but I don't care. Yes, there is a reason behind his eyes and chakra. No, he will not be all powerful and he will be uncoordinated, but he's going to be mildly super.**

**I may or may not write any omake for this story; we'll see. Either way, I intend for it to be my second completed work :D  
**

**In other news, it's snowing! I don't have school tomorrow :D Meaning I'll have time to do my homework... ehheh...**

**Also, if I can get any help with genres, that'd be spectacular. Thanks. (I fail at them)  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 2

Arashi was up and out of bed at the hotel within a minute of waking up rather than lounging as he usually did. He had no troubles recalling exactly what had happened yesterday, nor the conclusions he – or, rather, his clones – had come up with regarding the current situation. The night before he had had a pleasant dinner with Kasumi – he still couldn't get over that _that_ had raised the crazy snake-bitch who had been in charge of the second phase of his first chuunin exam – which involved him stuffing himself with Ichiraku ramen. It was nice to meet the old man's wife, though he did miss seeing Ayame, who had not yet been born.

The amount of ramen he had ingested was the reason he was up so quickly.

Lucky that, considering as soon as he had bathed in the hotel shower (he needed it) and was sufficiently awake to do anything more than shuffle about and grumble, Kasumi had let herself into the room. It was just three minutes to seven, the time she was set to meet him.

"'Rashi-kun, come on out!" He poked his still wet head from the bedroom (it was a nice hotel and had a living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom; it was also only a bit smaller than his own apartment). Kasumi was standing in the middle of the living area, grinning broadly at him. At her side, clutching the bottom of Kasumi's chuunin vest unconsciously, was a girl of seven or so year with darker purple hair – nearly black really – and light brown eyes.

Unmistakably Mitarashi Anko, who looked rather shy now that Naruto was only just barely younger than her. Though that might have been more to do with Arashi's strange eyes than actual shyness.

"Hey, I brought you a spare set of clothes from Hokage-sama," Kasumi said, holding up a bundle. "It was going to be just me picking you up, but Kiyoshi had a mission to get to, so my daughter is joining us. 'Rashi-kun, this is Anko. Anko, this is Kazama Arashi; he's going to the Academy today and ate at least a third of his own weight in ramen last night." She paused, noticing that she was still holding the new clothes. "Well, go on; go get changed! We still have to go get breakfast and get to the Academy in an hour. You don't want to be late on your first day, do you?"

Arashi shook his head swiftly and apologized before taking the bundle and disappearing back to the bedroom. He really did need something else after all; his pants were pretty much ragged balloon pants and the neck of his t-shirt almost fell off of his thin shoulders. Still, there went the last of his orange, as he found that his new outfit was black and blue. He would have rather had orange, but at least the shinobi-style sandals had an orange stripe.

Yes, definitely a good thing Kasumi had brought him clothes; going to school barefoot, much as he didn't want to go to school at all, would have been rather stupid. It hadn't mattered when he was walking in the woods and roof jumping, or even in the Hokage's office, but...

Well, even at fifteen-going-on-six years old, Naruto didn't like getting picked on. He'd had more than his fair share of that.

While changing, he did notice something off with his stomach though; despite the fact that he wasn't channeling any chakra at the moment, he could still see the seal spread across his abdomen. That shouldn't have been possible, yet it was shining bright as day; no training with his shirt of then, unless he wanted to answer any unsavory questions. Still, his new shirt covered in easily.

Taking an extra moment to finger the royal-blue leaf-symbol on the black t-shirt he sighed and left the room. It wasn't that he disliked blue, but it was the same shade as Sasuke's old shirts from when he had still been "the Uchiha" rather than "the traitor". Kasumi found it adorable and brought attention to his eyes. Not exactly his goal, considering his eyes were freaky.

Breakfast, much like dinner the night before, was full of inane chatter about just about everything. As soon as Anko realized that his eyes didn't seem to do anything creepy (like looking through her clothes as the Byakugan would), she turned out to be a very chipper child with a liking for poking Arashi with chopsticks. It was annoying, but he remembered she had been eating dango at the exam. Maybe she just liked poking things with sticks.

When they were done with breakfast, she took great joy in throwing those same chopsticks at the ceiling, where they bounced off. Kasumi's stuck, though there were so many chopsticks in the ceiling from various shinobi patrons that is would be impossible to pinpoint it once Arashi had looked away. It was a theme of the restaurant that the shinobi patrons would try to create a picture on the ceiling by the new year's festival when they would replace the ceiling; so far it was looking like a battle between stick figure people using... something.

Having not had much experience with senbon, Arashi tried throwing the first one like a kunai and it bounced off the ceiling harmlessly. He glared a moment before adjusting his grip and adding just a touch of wind chakra to the thin piece of wood to make the end sharp before throwing that one as well. It stuck out at an angle, but it stuck either way.

"Mom, did you see his eyes? They started turning yellow like yours!" She seemed highly excited by this, then she stopped, looked up, and her eyes widened. "Are you really just starting at the Academy? I don't know anyone at school who can do that, not even the Uchiha boy in my class."

Arashi shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His eyes turned yellow? He noticed that when he was on the water, even though they had been all blue that morning in the bathroom. Now when he had done the cheater way of getting his chopstick to stick they had gotten a bit yellow... it was disconcerting.

"'Rashi-kun is very advanced for his age," Kasumi whispered as she poked about in her pouch for her "on the Hokage" slip that was to be giving for Arashi's meals with her. "When I dropped by the Tower this morning, I heard he can do a jutsu that isn't taught in the Academy. That's why the Hokage is sending him today, when he's only five." Anko, of course, was in awe, but then moved on to disbelief.

Arashi was highly tempted to remind Kasumi that, just because he seemed five, it didn't mean he wouldn't notice her talking about him _right in front of him_. And to remind Anko that he may seem five, but he shouldn't be underestimated... except that he knew his taijutsu was worse even now than it had been when he was an academy student, if only because he was unused to the proportions. Walking had been easy enough to figure out, but his taijutsu was going to suffer for a while.

So it was probably a good thing that he was following Kasumi and Anko to Academy, even if it was through the crowded streets (Anko, as a first year student, was not yet good enough at jumping to safely traverse the roofs).

Waving good-bye to Kasumi at the gate, Arashi had to run to room 207, lest he be late. Of course, regular running would not do; instead he ran up the wall and vaulted through the window there a mere instant after the bell had rung. Of course, he was familiar with room 207's location, it having been his class room his second year, and so he had no trouble with arriving in the wrong room.

Though the room full of older kids – all ten, or thereabouts – who looked at him strangely. But Arashi just straightened himself out, glad again for the new clothes and shoes, before walking up to the front of the room and handing the chuunin instructor the scroll he had been assigned to. They all looked at him strangely, but did little more than whisper. Well, let them, though why the Hokage had immediately stuck him with an older class was beyond Arashi's reasoning.

"Well," the chuunin said as he looked up from the scroll, "it seems we have another younger student joining us today. Kazama-kun, go find yourself a seat while we get started. Perhaps next to Hatake-kun."

Now _that_ was a bit of a surprise, but Arashi made his way to where he silver-haired sensei was sitting in the front of the room... and he looked the same age as Arashi did. It was... strange, but he tried not to stare at the little boy with nearly-white skin, pale silver hair that stuck up, and the distinctive face mask covering his lower face.

Not for the first time, Arashi wondered where Hatake Kakashi had come across his Sharingan since he didn't seem to have it yet. Maybe in the field?

Still, he sat down next to his fellow midget and swung his legs in the seat was the designed for someone a good six inches to a foot taller than he.

"You're late," Kakashi glared at him. "Shinobi can't be late; it's against the rules." Arashi stared for half a beat, disbelieving, before he stuck out his tongue. Like _he_ was one to talk! And he wouldn't have been late if Anko hadn't insisted they stop for dango on the way (Kasumi was such a push-over...).

"Yeah, well, you're chakra's white!" Arashi snapped in retort. It was the first thing that came to mind, yet Kakashi looked at him with surprise. Hell, Arashi was surprised. He had never thought of chakra color beyond that his felt blue – now more green-blue – Kyuubi's was red, and Shukaku had gold chakra. But there was no denying now that he said it that this was the truth.

_How did I know that?_ He wondered, though he didn't say it aloud and instead turned his attention to the front of the room instead of letting himself ponder the boy at his side. Now was not the time to think about the future, because the teacher was talking to the class, and he really wanted to hear this, so he would know why it was this particular class he had been entered to. Ten year olds were the mid-level students, neither beginners nor ready to graduate.

Or so he thought.

"This will be your last day of formal shinobi education – for those of you who pass, that is," the chuunin cast a look in Arashi and Kakashi's direction before he continued. "This test will determine your future; whether you become genin or if you are in need of future training, or even if you are better suited for a civilian life." Then he looked at another corner of the room where a boy with black hair slumped in his seat.

"Line up in alphabetical order by your clan name descending down the center stairs," everyone rushed to line up. Arashi was near the front, third in line since his made-up surname began with "ka", while he noticed Kakashi was significantly further back. "Aozawa Hikari" was called up first.

The test was significantly more than what his graduating class had been tested on. They had to perform all three of the academy jutsu, which required next to no chakra control for anyone without jinchuuriki-sized reserves, and then they had to walk up the walls, then back down, and hit a target with a kunai. It was a lot more than _just_ bunshin.

"Kazama Arashi," he stepped forward and performed a simple replacement with the log provided, then a kage bunshin – not that it was visibly different from normal, so the chuunin didn't notice he did anything different in the first place – before one of his special henge to look like a teenaged girl (clothed, for once, considering he seemed to be a kid). The other two tests were just as easy and the chuunin reluctantly told him to pick up a hitai-ate on the way out.

He quite noticeably avoided Arashi's eyes. Not that the teen-turned-chibi was going to blame him; they were some damn creepy eyes to see on anyone, let alone a little kid.

Arashi was annoyed by his hitai-ate though. They weren't made for children because they had to fit the adult shinobi. The headbands were not reissued later in life, so Arashi now had a hitai-ate that was far too wide for his head. He didn't even try bending it and just tied it around his neck until he could think of something else to do with it.

About two-thirds of the class entered the room with a forehead protector, including Kakashi. He didn't seem too pleased that "late-boy" had passed as well, but ended up ignoring Arashi all together. That suited the blond just fine as he wasn't sure how any actual conversation with his sensei might go.

Well, at least he wouldn't have to sit through history lessons, though Arashi could still do with the taijutsu so that he could get used to his body. Already he had almost screwed up on walking up the wall because he had forgotten he had to get closer than he usually did due to the shorter legs.

After a week of milling around town, trying to get more used to his new size (he had gotten beyond the point of trying to strike too high when sparring against a clone, at least), and spending time with Kasumi and Anko, the graduates were called back to the Academy – on a Saturday no less! – for team assignments. Arashi took the same seat as he had for exams, much as he hated it (front and center sucked, but all the older kids were there before him), and was unsurprised that Kakashi was there before him.

He was no longer surprised at the boy's glare either; he was so used to being glared at that it failed to faze him.

The chuunin instructor from before explained much the same things as Iruka had, so Arashi only half paid attention and waited for the team assignments. However, when all the teams were decided, Arashi couldn't help but be confused. He had graduated – the hitai-ate slung about his neck was proof of that – but neither he nor Kakashi had been assigned to a team.

Then, he quickly realized, _they_ were going to be a team and he couldn't decide whether he should be excited – it was Kakashi after all! – or annoyed – because Kakashi seemed to be a rule maniac as a kid. The older kids seemed to have noticed as well.

"Kazama-kun, Hatake-kun, you have both been selected as apprentices," the teacher addressed them both. "Your sensei will arrive when the rest of the teams have vacated. For now, everyone, you have an hour and a half for lunch before your sensei will being arriving. Make sure you're back in time."

Arashi left the room out the window, just as he had arrived, and met Kasumi and Anko outside. Kasumi was standing on the chain-link fence and helping Anko to balance up there as well. She was doing quite well for only being seven; Naruto wasn't quite used to his body enough to stand on it without using chakra.

"So, did they say who you're going to apprentice under, 'Rashi-kun?" Kasumi asked. Arashi was highly tempted to blow a gasket – she _knew_ he wasn't going to be on a regular genin team – but instead shook his head.

"No; none of the sensei are going to arrive until lunch is over," he jumped on the fence beside Anko and attached using chakra. In the past week, he had learned why his eyes turned yellow sometimes. Well, not why, but he did know what caused it; molding chakra. He was a bit worried about it being Kyuubi manifesting in him, but he couldn't really say anything about it. Whatever it was, it was caused by the humming air that he felt when he molded chakra.

Yet another thing about his midget form that Arashi hated.

"Oh, well you'll love him," Kasumi chuckled before leaping off the fence's other side and taking Anko down with her. "He's an absolute doll! Actually, not that I think of it, he looks like you 'Rashi-kun, except for your scars and your eyes of course. Maybe he's your cousin or something." She giggled, though when asked she refused to divulge the name of this mystery sensei.

Arashi enjoyed a pleasant home-cooked meal courtesy of Kasumi before being sent back to the Academy. Once again, he was almost late. As with the past few times, he could blame that on Anko and her incessant need for dango; he also blamed the girl's father who made Arashi go with them to get dango instead of letting him get to school.

Not that Arashi much cared about being on time; he wasn't due to be born for a while yet, though he wasn't sure how long. Still, he had just sat back in his seat when the teacher entered the room with a group of jounin, including a man who Arashi vaguely recognized as being an Aburame; perhaps Shino's father?

As each sensei took charge of their trio of students, the room slowly emptied until finally the only non-student remaining was only a yellow-haired teenager talking to the chuunin sensei in the corner. Arashi noticed that the teen had perhaps spikier hair than _he_ did, which was certainly saying something. Still, that conversation came to an end and the teenager, who was maybe a year older than Naruto had been, walked over to Arashi and Kakashi.

"You're Hatake Kakashi and Kazama Arashi, right?" He looked at them each in turn with startlingly blue eyes that quite obviously avoided Arashi's. Not an uncommon reaction for the past week. He looked familiar, almost like... but no. There was _no way_ that this kid was the Yondaime. True, Arashi had only seen him in Kakashi's team photo (Kakashi had been at least ten in that), and on the monument, but somehow he couldn't imagine the man with a pink t-shirt declaring him "King of Kittens".

It had to be another spiky-haired blond. It just _had_ to be.

Of course, the Yondaime had always been his idol, ever since he was learning about the great deeds of all the Hokage he had wanted to be like the Yondaime. Finding out that his jounin sensei was the Yondaime's student had been exciting, and Jiraiya had actually _taught_ the man, which was even better. It had Naruto feel close to the being who sealed the Kyuubi in him.

Now though...

"Did our sensei send you?" Kakashi asked attentively, coal-black eyes taking in the pink shirt with more disdain than any child ought to hold. Even Arashi, who just had his dreams shattered and was fully old enough to be disdainful of _anything_ thought it was a bit overboard.

"You're both to meet on the roof," he didn't respond to Kakashi's question, however, and merely shunshined out. Arashi _really_ needed to learn how to do that at some point; even Sasuke could do it back in their first chuunin exam.

Still, that reply was all Arashi needed and he walked to the window, planted his feet on the wall, and walked up to the roof. It really didn't matter; he wasn't doing it to show off or anything. This way was just a lot faster than going to the stairs and climbing them for too floors (also, he kept trying to take steps two at a time and forgetting how short his legs were).

"A bit of a waste of your energy, isn't it Arashi-kun?" The Yondaime grinned at Arashi as he calmly walked on the bars and vaulted properly over the fence. It took a moment to reevaluate his relationship with gravity. "There are stairs coming up, you know."

"I have a lot of chakra, and this way was faster," he shrugged. The Yondaime – teenager that he was – didn't seem surprised at the comment about having a lot of chakra and merely nodded. Well, why should he be surprised? First off, he was _the_ Yondaime Hokage. Or he would be. And second, the Hokage would have told the man chosen as his instructor about everything he knew.

That, of course, led to Arashi realizing why the Yondaime had been selected as his teacher; after all, he was lauded as the greatest genius ever within Konoha! And the first thing Arashi had done upon entering Konoha was to show off by producing an A-ranked jutsu that no one tossed about as casually as he always did. And Kakashi was a genius too, wasn't he?

_Or maybe the old man just doesn't trust some little kid wandering into town with shinobi training to be looked after by anyone but the best_, he thought. That made more sense.

"Okay you two," Arashi almost jumped when he realized that the Yondaime had directed him to sit on the steps and that Kakashi had arrived. The pink-clad teen himself was leaning nonchalantly against the railing just where Arashi had climbed up. "We're going to do some introductions; get to know each other, right? So things like your likes and dislikes, dreams for the future, whatever strikes your fancy."

Arashi waited, and realized that he was expected to go first. "Eto... sensei, why don't you go first? Show us how it's done?" Not that he had anything against going first, but... well, he just didn't want to.

"Hn? Oh! Right," the embarrassed gesture of squinting his eyes and ruffling the back of his hair was highly familiar to Arashi. Scarily so, really. "My name is Namikaze Minato, and I'm seventeen. I was promoted to jounin about a year ago, so you guys are my first genin team... except we're not quite the same as a team, but I'll explain that later. I like animals a lot, particularly foxes and toads, and making up new jutsu. I dislike that my old genin team leader is always trying to involve me on his perverted escapades," Arashi was glad to hear he wasn't the only one, "and I _really_ dislike this one kunoichi... eh, but you don't need to hear about that. My hobbies are making up new jutsu, helping out around the Academy, and playing cards in the red-light district. And my dream for the future is to wear the Hokage hat! Doesn't matter if it's legitimately or not; I just think it looks cool. You next, Blondie."

The grin was oddly familiar as well, yet Arashi did not allow himself to dwell on what that might mean. It was also really stupid to call Arashi "Blondie" when not only did the Yondaime – Minato – know Arashi's name, but he was just as blond if not more so.

"I'm Kazama Arashi, five years old," he almost said fifteen. He'd not actually had to tell anyone his age so far, unlike his name. "I've had a lot of training up until I came to Konoha, and I know some cool jutsu, but I'm not so great with taijutsu yet, or genjutsu. I also have really high stamina. I like ramen, and Kasumi-nee-chan, and training. I like making up new jutsu too, but I've only made up a few... I dislike stuck-up bastards," he half expected to be chided for his language, but forged on, "and the three minutes you have to wait for instant ramen to cook. I hate my eyes. My hobbies are training, pranks, making up jutsu, and I've been learning how to cook something more complex than field rations lately. And my dream..."

Did he have a dream anymore? He couldn't be Hokage if he barely even existed, could he? Especially considering the man before him was going to be the next Hokage (even if, for now, he only wanted that stupid hat). It just wasn't to be.

"My dream is to make a better future," he finally said after half a moment's pause. There, that was ambiguous, and if he could pull it off, maybe accurate too.

"Considering you're a genin at five, 'Rashi-kun, that's pretty impressive of you to have made _any_ orignal techniques," Minato grinned, unconsciously using the nickname that Arashi had been getting used to from Kasumi and Anko for the past week. "I'll train you in taijutsu, no problem. As for your eyes..." it was especially noticeable that he wasn't looking Arashi in the eyes just then. "Well, they're certainly unique. They're a better way to distinguish yourself than if you wore all orange or something."

Now _that_ rubbed Arashi wrong. He liked orange!

"Says the man wearing a hot pink t-shirt," Arashi deadpanned in retort. The blush on Minato's face made the teen-child grin. Score one for team chibi!

"It's not my fault; I lost a bet," Minato grumbled. "Just for that, when this is over you're going to run three laps around Konoha." Arashi wasn't fazed; he could run for a long time, just like any shinobi. "On the walls." Again, Arashi was unfazed. He had a lot of chakra to burn; if anything that would be _faster_ that normal. "While wearing an orange jumpsuit."

Arashi just grinned at his sensei, exposing slightly longer than average canines. He would have orange in his wardrobe again!

It seemed, however, that Kakashi had had enough. "I am Hatake Kakashi of the Hatake clan; I an five years old," his tone was highly militaristic for his age, especially compared to the bickering blonds. "My likes are not important; I dislike those who disobey the rules. My hobby is training. My dream for the future is to rid the Hatake clan of its shame and to die in the service of my village."

It was a highly morbid and minimalist life for a five-year-old child, that much was for certain.

It seemed that Minato shared that view, though he said nothing about it.

"Right, 'Rashi-kun, 'Kashi-kun," oh no, they were a _pair_ now! "Here's how this is going to work; our 'team' is, obviously, going to be a bit unconventional. For the most part, we will be training rather than taking missions. In fact, we won't take any missions but one D-rank per day until I think you're both ready, and you aren't allowed to complain. I'll focus on making your weak-points stronger while honing your stronger bits into impenetrable defenses and insane offenses. You were both allowed to advance because it was obvious you are above Academy level. 'Kashi-kun, your basic skills are highly refined, and your knowledge of the rules rivals those of your tutors. 'Rashi-kun, the jutsu you demonstrated a week ago is an A-rank kinjutsu, obviously above the regular skill level," now _that_ got Kakashi's attention. "But neither of you are ready for the field.

"If I gave you the test my sensei gave me when I graduated, at this moment you would both fail, simply because you have trained for when you will have bigger bodies," it was true, but how should he know that? "There are no methods for child soldiers because child soldiers grow up; it's considered pointless to train them in something they'll grow out of before they hit the field. However, at the rate you two have progressed, you'll be taking on C-rank missions before the year is out." Considering it was the middle of March, that seemed a fair estimate for _any_ rookie. "Meaning you will both be in combat situations for years before you will be large enough to use the methods taught to you. Hokage-sama assigned me to fix that."

Seeing the serious face on the Hokage-to-be, Arashi could believe Minato was just that, pink t-shirt or no pink t-shirt. The look was similar to the one that would grace the Hokage Monument one day. How far away, he couldn't be certain, but it couldn't be too long.

"Meet me tomorrow at sun-up in training area number 27," Minato stated finally. "Have a good breakfast and pack a bento; you're going to need the energy." He paused and grinned. "Oh, and 'Rashi-kun? Stay behind a moment, would you?" Kakashi caught the hint and left like a good little child soldier. "The old man says you're to come live with me starting tonight, okay kid? No one your age should be living alone, nice as Mitarashi-san must be considering she's been taking care of you. Also, I'm to take you shopping today so you have more than just that one set of clothes. And it seems an orange jumpsuit is on the shopping list so you can undergo your punishment for back-sassing me."

Arashi went from being stunned to overjoyed to a bit smug all in the space of twenty seconds.

"Mom, why is there an orange blob on that wall?" Anko tugged on her mother's sleeve and pointed at the large wall surrounding Konoha proper. And, indeed, there was an orange something on the wall, moving quickly enough that it was almost a blur.

Kasumi followed her daughter's gaze and blinked. "I think that's 'Rashi-kun," she stated after a moment of observation. "Poor kid; he must have made fun of Minato-san's shirt. Why else would he be wearing bright orange in public?" It completely skipped her mind that the impromptu pants that boy had been wearing when they met were orange.

Up on the wall, Arashi was running without too much of a care, evening whistling as he finished his third and final lap over where Minato's apartment – the one that he, too, would be living in for the next few years (or until he finally made chuunin) – and landed softly on the roof of the nice complex where his equally brightly-clad sensei awaited him with surprise.

"You weren't kidding about having high stamina, were you?" Minato whistled, obviously impressed. "You aren't even winded! Right, let's get down to the apartment. I picked up some salt ramen since your said you liked it, but after tonight you're eating healthy food, got it? You'll never be tall like me if all you eat are noodles after all." Even though Minato was barely above average height, he still towered over the bite-sized jinchuuriki. Just to prove that this made him superior, he picked up the protesting time-traveler, slung the child over his shoulder, and hopped onto the small outside porch.

Arashi wondered, in the back of his mind, if this was what it was like to have a big brother.

**Author's Note: Yeah, got some cute unknowing-father-son-bickering/bonding in there. 'Twas fun. By the way, I do realize that Anko would actually be a couple years YOUNGER than ickle!Naruto, but for the purposes of my story I made her a bit older than Kakashi because otherwise my timeline is just a bit weird. Oh, and Obito will definitely be in this story; he and Shisui are my favorite Uchiha (the reason for Shishui... well, I'm not telling).**

**Got bored, posted some drawings of Arashi's eyes on my DeviantArt account. It's linked in my profile if you care.**

**Oh, and I won't be doing any fangirlisms. I actually speak Japanese and I find them annoying as hell.**


	3. Chapter 3

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 3

The first morning of living with Minato turned out to be hell for Arashi. He had gone to sleep in the pajamas that the Hokage had ordered Minato to buy for him (it would come out of his pay when they started taking missions, as would twenty percent for rent and food) and woke half an hour before sunrise. He left "his" bedroom and was horrified.

His new orange jumpsuit, the one that had been bought for him as "punishment", had been dyed a more shinobi-friendly color. He fell to his knees and was tempted to start crying over the now-black jumpsuit. His precious orange...

Even worse, he had to have miso and fish for breakfast. He had nothing against those foods in particular; they were common breakfast fare to anyone from the more traditional families, but it wasn't ramen. He hadn't entirely expected Minato to go through on his threat, yet he had, and Arashi found himself eating a _healthy_ breakfast that didn't fill him up nearly enough. He glared hatefully at the man.

"You are a very cruel person, Minato-sensei," he grumbled as he poked the fish with his chopstick. Was this thing even edible? He wasn't entirely sure he trusted any man to cook for him but Teuchi at the Ichiraku stand, especially one who had died his much-loved and brand-new orange jumpsuit _black_. Arashi hated black... well, that was a bit harsh, but it was far from being his favorite color; hell, according to Jiraiya it wasn't a real color anyway!

Thinking of Jiraiya only made him sad until he realized that Jiraiya hadn't even met him yet and was, in fact, alive. That was a much happier thought. Even more that he was to be taught be _the_ Yondaime Hokage and was living with that same person.

Yet, given the suspicious looking fish on his plate and the black jumpsuit pants he was wearing – the jacket was still drying out – Arashi couldn't help but to be a bit disenchanted with the guy. It didn't matter if Minato was the Yondaime-to-be, or if he was essentially Arashi's guardian – hell, it wouldn't have mattered to the boy if Minato was his _father_ – Arashi simply did not like him.

For the moment. He was bound to get over it when Minato started teaching him.

Upon leaving the apartment, Minato seemed content to run very quickly. Well, not very quickly for a shinobi, but considering Arashi was following him (he supposedly would not know which training ground to head to), it seemed quite fast. He pumped quite a bit of chakra into his legs to keep up with his sensei, and when they arrived at the assigned meeting point, Arashi was pumping with adrenaline and his legs ached. More so, the air had progressed from "buzzing" to "humming".

No, wait, that was Minato, who was humming a popular song. Or Arashi assumed it was popular; it was certainly a catchy enough tune.

"'Kashi-kun! You showed up one time!" Minato crowed happily. "Fantastic. And I see you beat the trap I set for early-birds too. Good for you." And, indeed, there were several blunt kunai on the ground and Arashi could see the telltale glint of wire in the grass. "That's lesson number one; don't be late, but don't be early. It's harder to be caught if you are right on time. And while it's good to be able to set up traps, you never know who might have set traps for _you_."

It was actually pretty sound advice, though Arashi already knew it. The best way to avoid an ambush may be to arrive before expected, but when given a specific arrival time, it was best to arrive on time and not give anyone the opportunity to attack while waiting. But Arashi pretended to not pay any attention to his latest sensei; he was good at that.

"'Rashi-kun, are you listening to me?" Minato rested his hand on top of Arashi's head, a deadpan look on his face. Arashi debated for a moment before replying.

"Yes, Minato-sensei," he replied dutifully, just like the god little genius he was pretending to be. "The early-bird catches the worm, but the night-owl catches the early bird, right?" That was how Jiraiya had taught it at least.

Minato looked slightly miffed, but he only ruffled Arashi's already messy hair and nodded. "Yeah," he rolled his eyes. "You sound just like Jiraiya-sensei, Gaki." Arashi might have protested being called a brat if he hadn't been called far worse all his life. Anything was better than "demon" or "monster". Even if he was three times as old as he looked.

Arashi just grinned smugly at his sensei/guardian/landlord.

Maybe being taught by the man who had sealed his tormentor was going to be more fun than he originally thought.

Of course, by lunch time, Arashi was wishing for death, but that was beside the point. Minato wanted to know just what his students were capable of, and Arashi soon found out just how much of a genius his original jounin sensei really was. Within the first minute of their taijutsu-only spar he discovered that Arashi was tracking him by his feet, and Kakashi used that to his advantage. Really, Arashi only won because of his ungodly stamina; every time he was knocked down he got back up and charged in without missing a beat. Kakashi may have been a prodigy, but he didn't have the sheer energy that Arashi had always possessed.

After that Minato had them demonstrate their skills with ninjutsu. Arashi wasn't terribly proud to say he out-streaked Kakashi in that area since Kakashi was one-third his real age and had far less training than he did. Also, Minato clearly looked away when Arashi gathered his chakra and started doing what he knew – except Rasengan and variations thereof; he wasn't _that_ stupid – though he did toss in a yuri no jutsu as a tribute to his own student-and-rival, Konohamaru.

It was a good way to introduce Arashi's pranking skills, he later decided, even if he did have to clean the blood off the grass later. And he had to pay for Minato's dry-cleaning bill. He also had to tell the dry-cleaner that his sensei had a sparring accident, rather than that he was a closet pervert.

He told them the latter anyway, when he picked up the clothes again the next day. Minato was preoccupied anyway.

After a nice bento lunch – Arashi had to make his own that morning (Minato, it seemed, knew _nothing_ of child rearing) – the tallest of the spiky-haired trio led the shorter two off to the Hokage tower for their first official D-rank mission. They had to go to a small farm out of town and weed-out their corn-field so that planting could begin for the year. The mission was slated to last the rest of the week in three-hour spans each day.

It took Arashi one-hour after he summoned up his clones to get the job done, and he knew that seeing physical clones surprised his fellow apprentice (due to the yuri incident, Arashi never had to prove his clones were anything but the regular illusory variety). Minato, while surprised by the sheer quantity of shadow clones, was not surprised that Arashi used them, as was expected. The old man wouldn't leave a student's sensei in the dark about something like that.

_Though, to be fair, the student shouldn't keep tings secret from the sensei either,_ Arashi winced internally as they walked back to Konoha. So far Kyuubi had done absolutely nothing. Hadn't tried to tempt him, hadn't seeped any tainted chakra into his coils... nothing. That was the most disturbing thing he could think of really, Kyuubi not even trying.

Admittedly, there had been no incident to cause the Kyuubi to be able to do anything, but it unnerved the young genin all the same.

Back in the Hokage tower, the chuunin on desk duty didn't believe them when they said they were done. "Two brats that young can't possibly have finished in anything less than a week," the man snorted, tilting his chair back. "Honestly Namikaze-san, I always knew you had a superiority complex, but having your subordinates skip out on an assignment to look good? That really takes the cake." Minato didn't seem at all disturbed by this. "That job was estimated for a regular genin team, not a couple of kids who aren't even old enough to enter the Academy to begin with."

"We are not lying!" Arashi snapped angrily, glaring at the man. Everyone always thought he was lying because of Kyuubi, and now because of his age. "It took up twenty minutes to get there, an hour to do the work, and half an hour to get back." Well, ten minutes of that later half-hour was because the farmer's wife tried to give Kakashi and Arashi sweets. Arashi accepted (sweets were tasty), but Kakashi refused.

"And I'm telling you that's – oh, hello Hokage-sama! What are you doing at the missions desk at this time of day?" The chuunin immediately had his chair back properly on the floor and Arashi turned to see that, indeed, Sarutobi Hiruzen was present with two little boys at his side. The elder of the two had been in Arashi and Kakashi's graduating class while the younger looked to be about five or six years old.

"I heard that our youngest shinobi had returned from their mission, and Asuma-kun wanted to meet them," the old man chuckled, ruffling the younger boy's hair. The kid swatted that hand away, while Arashi marveled that that little kid was Sarutobi Asuma; such a small world this was! "Well, go on son. They aren't going to bite."

No one had ever encouraged their child to go within a mile of Arashi before (except Kasumi, but he really couldn't count Anko as a child even when she so clearly was one). It was a truly novel experience.

"Eto... hi, I'm Asuma," the child stated nervously as he stepped forward a little bit. Unlike everyone else, he didn't avoid Arashi's gaze, but rather looked at him intently, studying the slitted blue eyes. "Your eyes... do they do anything?"

No one had actually asked Arashi about his eyes, as he was rather self conscious of them for the week he had had them. "Well, I don't think so," he responded. He saw just the same as he had before, except that squinting didn't stop his eyes from getting too much light in them (particularly annoying in the morning), and he hadn't noticed them doing anything other than start turning yellow when he used chakra.

"Oh," Asuma tilted his head, "'cause the Uchiha boy in my class said that his family all his weird eyes too, but he doesn't have his yet, and they do cool stuff! And the Hyuuga girl has funny eyes that can see through stuff. I don't know anyone else with weird eyes though."

Of course a child would mention the families who want to have weird things going on with their eyes, but Arashi didn't have a doujutsu. He didn't mind being strange or distinctive, but all he could think of when he saw the horizontal slits was Kyuubi, and that was not a good thing to think of. Still, he kept up the smiling mask that he used all throughout his Academy days.

"Do your mom and dad have eyes like yours?" Asuma persisted. Any shyness he had about meeting a young shinobi were lost already, and he seemed to have forgotten that Kakashi was present at all... probably a good idea. Kakashi might scare him.

"I doubt it," Arashi shrugged. He quickly turned his attention to the Hokage before Asuma could ask something about his parents. Not that Arashi would be hurt by saying they were dead – it was a reality he had lived his entire life with – but more fear of being incorrect about that. After all, the Yondaime still lived, that meant they did too since both his parents died on his birthday. "Hey Jii-san, the guy behind the desk doesn't believe that we finished our mission. We've been here for at least ten minutes and he won't let us fill out the completion report."

"Show some respect to your Hokage, kid! I already told you, you don't get paid if you don't do the whole mission. One hour of work by two kids isn't going to get an entire field weeded," the chuunin sounded exasperated. "Sir, talk some sense into the brats! Namikaze-san hasn't stepped in yet to take them down a peg yet. I swear, give a couple of kids a hitai-ate and they think they're tokubetsu jounin!"

Arashi sent a glare to the chuunin from the corner of his eyes but paid attention to the Hokage. He did notice Asuma glared at the chuunin as well, though why was beyond the inadvertent time traveler.

"Minato-kun?" Asuma's father sounded more bemused than anything.

"Sorry Ojii-sama, it's my fault entirely," Minato ducked his head and scratched the back as if embarrassed, though it was obviously an act. "It's just that it's against my better nature to teach children to lie to their superiors. If I had realized this would happen I would have told them to work at a more sedate pace, get it done in a week rather than an hour, but... well, here we are."

The chuunin could only gawk while the Hokage smiled. "Of course, Minato-kun, no harm done," he chuckled lowly. "Now, Kurogawa-san, would you mind giving these boys their report scroll? Oh, and Minato-kun? I want to talk to you after you're finished in here." With that the Hokage left the room, beckoning his sons to follow in his wake.

Arashi grinned deviously at the chuunin and summoned up a shadow clone to do the work while he started his laps, his punishment for using Konohamaru's yuri technique against his sensei.

Some things were so completely worth it.

* * *

Minato entered the Hokage's office with a cautious step. The aging man had already sent his sons home to their mother, and Minato had sent Kakashi along as well. Arashi was out running laps on the wall, or he would be until Mitarashi Kasumi came to pick him up after her shift ended. Apparently she wanted to congratulate him for his first mission or something.

"Ojii-sama," Minato bowed at the waist to the man who was, quite simply, like a father to him. But it was more entertaining to poke fun at the man's age, and he referred to the village leader accordingly. "What did you want to see me about?"

"Mostly about Arashi-kun, but I would like to hear about Kakashi-kun and your mission today as well," the Hokage smiled lightly. "You look a bit paler than normal; is there any reason to that?"

The youngest active jounin in Konoha would have blushed if he had lost the extra blood required for that to Arashi's perverted jutsu. Not that he was going to mention that to the Hokage.

"'Rashi-kun seems a lot better adjusted than you would think for such a young kid," Minato shrugged. "He can be serious, I noticed this especially when I had him sparring with 'Kashi-kun, and he's terribly stubborn. Every time he gets knocked down he gets right up again. One time I was sure that he'd broken the skin on his lip by biting it, but when he got back up there was no sign of any wound except for a dab of blood that he licked off as if it were nothing. There wasn't any scarring or anything either."

"So we may assume that he has an unnatural healing rate," the Hokage nodded. "There are several clans in the hidden countries that possess such bloodlines, though none in Hi no Kuni that I am aware of. Continue."

"He also possesses a bit of a pranking streak and even created a rather... _unique_ application of henge and shadow clones that would put Jiraiya-sensei into a coma, or any other pervert for that matter," Minato was careful to not look at his leader with that statement. He was _not_ a pervert, he was simply a healthy teenaged boy. "He also seems to actually _like_ the color orange, though why I don't know. He was glaring daggers at me when I dyed his new orange jumpsuit black, and yesterday he tried to convince me to that an orange replacement strap for his head band was vital to his survival. He's a lot more like a regular kid than you would expect.

"Compared to 'Kashi-kun, 'Rashi-kun is a regular kid. Kakashi seems to have it drilled into his head that the rules are everything. Not that I blame him, after everything that has happened to his father in the past few months I can imagine he thinks that being a perfect soldier will get rid of their shame, but it's definitely unhealthy. When we were leaving the farm, he refused to take any candies from the farer's wife, even when Arashi accepted. He said it was juvenile, and that as a shinobi he was now a man shouldn't indulge in things like that."

"I expected as much," the Hokage leaned back and sighed. "Is there any new information about Arashi-kun's eyes or where he is from?"

"Not really, though he said quite plainly that he 'hates' his eyes," Minato shrugged. "It's probably something he was picked on for back in his own village or something, or maybe he just doesn't like the attention they draw. And you heard what he said in the mission room about "doubting" that his parents have the same eyes. I'm guessing he's either an orphan or abandoned. If it's the latter, his parents could be from Mizu no Kuni, in which case he could even be the start of a bloodline."

Both remained silent for a moment before the Hokage sighed and lit his pipe. As was his habit, he stood and turned to look over the city as he ruminated.

"We shall just have to wait and see what else may be discovered about the boy," he stated after a minute. "It's obvious that he is something entirely new to Konoha. You should continue your guardian role as best you can until we can decide what to do about him."

"Yeah, but..." Minato grimaced. "I have no idea what to do with a kid, you know that. I got him clothes and set him up in a room and he's ecstatic, but he didn't want to eat anything healthy. I'm going to go mad taking care of him."

"You could always ask Ku-" However, the aging Hokage was cut off before he could even finish the word. Given who he was about to suggest, and who he was suggesting her to, it was little surprise.

"No. _Anyone_ but her." Minato crinkled his nose, obviously knowing who the Hokage was going to suggest. The old man may want them to get along, but with those two... it simply was not going to happen. She was just too... well, it just wasn't going to happen. So the Hokage continued gazing over the village, a small smile on his face.

"I will as Mitarashi-san to give you some pointers then. For now, Falcon has been called to the ANBU meeting in half an hour and it would be a bad idea if he were late. I'm sure Arashi will need some notice that you will be out for a while longer as well." Minato sighed and acquiesced, leaving through the door, unlike most visitors to the Hokage Tower.

Minato did want to wear that hat one day, but he hoped that the grandfatherly manner and meddling tendencies did not come along with it.

* * *

The next morning proved just as bad as the first, but for a different person. Arashi grinned over his breakfast – leftovers from the night before – at his guardian who now had vibrant pink hair. After the proper percentage had been taken out of his pay, Arashi still had almost two-thousand ryou, which had been enough to buy a box of permanent pink hair dye and a bowl of Ichiraku ramen. The hair dye made its way into Minato's hair when the older blond was asleep and the man had been horrified to find the pink goop in his hair when he woke up.

It was, however, too late, and the jounin now had pink hair. Arashi's jumpsuit had been avenged.

Day after day went by as Arashi got into the swing of having a roommate. Minato always made breakfast, Arashi would pack both their lunches (pranking Minato's food was a death sentence), and for dinner they would either do take-out or Arashi would be invited to dine with Kasumi, Kiyoshi, and Anko. Usually those were nights when Minato had to be out of the apartment for one reason or another.

Each morning was devoted to training of some sort, though Minato usually had one of his two apprentices in individual training for the first hour of the morning to give the other time to lie in (or, in Arashi's case, run more laps around the village). He was disappointed to find out how bad Arashi's chakra control was, even though the boy could do any of the exercises he was given, they simply didn't help much with controlling how much chakra he used at any given time.

In the afternoon, they took one mission each day. Sometimes Arashi would make it easier by using his clones – especially for search-and-rescue missions (usually for pets) – while others he did the work honestly to help his muscle tone and make Kakashi stop glaring at him for doing all the work. No matter what they were done by five, and out of the Hokage Tower with their pay by six if not earlier.

The mission desk chuunin had all since learned that if Team Bed Head (a nickname given by Kasumi which, unfortunately, stuck) said they were done, they really were. The last time someone had contradicted Arashi, he had used the second variation of Konohamaru's jutsu and scarred the man for life by doing a yaoi no jutsu of the man's son-to-be and Yakushi Kabuto (Hyuuga Hizashi would never be same after he saw _that_).

Sometimes after missions, Asuma would come by the Tower and try to coerce Arashi and Kakashi into playing with him or helping him with what he had just learned in the Academy. Kakashi never gave in, but soon it was quite common for Arashi to find himself playing ninja with Asuma. Actually, he was strongly reminded of the boy's nephew, in just about everything they did together. Maybe part of it was Kakashi asking why he bothered _playing_ ninja when he already was one, but Arashi didn't really care.

He just liked that he could hang out with someone who wouldn't grow up to be creepy and who was fun to be with. It was also a plus that, once Asuma's friends got used to his eyes, none of them asked any questions about them.

It was a bit over a month into training that Arashi discovered anything new about his circumstances. He was having a "spar" against Minato (meaning he was attacking and Minato was telling him every little mistake in learning the new style that the older blond made for his miniature students) and got a bit annoyed. So he started running in a wide circle around his teacher, and started gathering chakra.

Or he tried to gather chakra. It just... wouldn't come. Arashi could see no reason for it to not work, yet as he ran around he couldn't even _touch_ the well of chakra he knew himself to possess. He had gathered some at the start of the spar and had already used it up, but now...

Nothing. Not the tiniest tickle of energy waiting to be molded.

He stopped in his tracks, confused, and found that he could access the energy once more, but that was when he realized a major effect of what had happened. The old toad _had_ said that, to gather sage chakra, one must be completely still, and obviously the whole drowning-in-frog-oil thing had affected his chakra somehow. He could mold chakra while walking – this had been done before after all – but not while running.

Like the dutiful little student he was, Arashi told Minato... well, okay, he actually gaped for a moment and started swearing liking a Kirinin having a bad day. Minato swatted him for swearing and then asked what was wrong, though the answer was unexpected.

"You'd be swearing a blue streak too if you found out that you couldn't mold chakra while running," Arashi snapped. Internally he was cursing the Kyuubi and the toads and anything else he could curse, though he kept it to himself. He didn't need to be hit again. Even if it was just a playful swat my shinobi proportions, it still hurt his kid-sized skull.

Minato, of course, decided that this bore looking into and asked Arashi a series of questions and had him do various activities while trying to mold chakra, see how much chakra he could mold at once and store without using, and other tests that Arashi certainly wouldn't have thought of. Though it was nice to know that he couldn't mold chakra while doing a handstand, he hardly found that at all useful, though Minato was fascinated. They ended up spending the morning doing such tests while Minato set Kakashi to do some chakra control exercises.

"Right, you two can have the afternoon off today, I've got some things to do," which was a lie, or it would have been before they found out about Arashi's little handicap. "Keep out of trouble and don't forget to do your independent exercises, both of you." And with that he shunshined away.

_Probably to show the Hokage what we found out_, Arashi thought to himself. It occurred suddenly that, when they first met, the Hokage had said they would talk again, which they most certainly had not done in the past month and a half. Curious, but the Hokage was a busy guy. _Who am I kidding? He'll take any excuse to get away from paperwork, and a suspicious kid with funny eyes is as good an excuse as any._

With nothing else to do that day until Asuma and Anko were excused from the Academy for the day, Arashi double-checked that his bento was still in the backpack he had brought with him and went to the training ground that he memorial stone sat in. Sitting on the middle log, the one that he had been tied to during the super-secret genin test, he picked at the leftover yakisoba thoughtfully.

This entire thing was, admittedly, unexpected. But to have that sort of limitation on his chakra? It was a necessity for a shinobi to be able to work on the go, especially being able to gather chakra as they ran. As a matter of course, Arashi always molded a lot before doing anything – it was simply how his coils worked – but any that he had not purposefully gathered beforehand, it seemed, was inaccessible to anything other than regular body functions. It could not be consciously utilized.

After a few minutes of not eating – certainly a new thing for him – Arashi simply se his bento op top of the log and walked over to the memorial stone. There were hardly any names on it in comparison to what he was used to. Mind, he'd rarely taken the time to look, but he could tell that hardly any names were present; the stone had only been added a few months ago with the beginning stirrings of the Great Shinobi War between Iwa and Konoha that would start in about a year's time.

Naruto had never really paid much attention to History at the Academy. After all, what did the actions of a bunch of dead people have to do with him? But he knew some things. With a very slight sigh, he traced Jiraiya's name where he knew it had been added, then that of the current Hokage just an inch above that. They were heroes of the village.

"Hey kid, are you going to eat your lunch or let the flies get at it?" Arashi jolted about and fell on his butt in front of the monument. Not even two steps away from him was a... well, he assumed she was a girl, given the upper anatomy that men tended to lack.

She wasn't too tall, nor too short and looked to be around the same age as Minato, maybe a little younger. Her hair was chopped short, the same style as Gaara's had been and the red only a bit more vibrant. Cheery green eyes looked directly at Arashi, completely unfazed by Arashi's own strange eyes. She was slim and energetic, but for some reason she was dressed in boy's clothing, from the khaki shorts to the dark gray t-shirt.

But she _did_ have orange sandals, and for that Arashi found her a worthy person to associate himself with. The chuunin vest she wore gave him the impression that she probably already knew about him, but that didn't much matter.

"I'm not really hungry," Arashi shrugged. He wasn't, even though Minato had put him through his paces and he should be positively ravenous by this point. Quite simply, he was too preoccupied.

"Nonsense, a growing boy like you needs to eat," she waved away his words like they were nothing. To her, they probably were. "Up now kid, or I shall subject you to the worst torture known to man, got that?" Arashi gave her a rather deadpan expression that probably looked strange on the face of a child, but he really just didn't feel like doing anything. He wasn't the depressive type, wouldn't let himself be, but the whole "can't mold chakra on the run" thing could make or break his career as a shinobi. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

And suddenly Arashi found himself being tickled. He flailed and most certainly did _not_ scream, but he had been lifted in the air by the kunoichi and so his flailing did little to avail him. However, he did managed to still himself for a moment and he conjured a single shadow clone before swapping out with it.

And clones weren't ticklish. It must be something to do with the fact that they didn't actually have nerve endings. The kunoichi stopped tickling as soon as she noticed that her subject was no longer protesting. Then she looked from the clone in her arms to the boy on the other side of the memorial stone and back. Several times.

"Okay... I'm impressed," she admitted. "So, what's your name, gaki?"

"Kazama Arashi," a month and a half of practice made him wonder if Uzumaki Naruto ever existed.

"Oh, your one of the chibi-genin that Namikaze-baka is training, eh?" The woman snickered while Arashi perked an eyebrow. So she didn't like Minato. "You poor kid, I feel sorry for anyone who has to spend too much time with that wet blanket. You can call me Kushi-nee-chan. Maybe I'll show you some ninjutsu, okay? I heard from Kasumi-san that you're a ninjutsu type, so maybe I'll teach you something."

Arashi immediately perked up. "Seriously?" He liked being taught by Minato, but the older blond really was too serious most of the time. And he hadn't learned a single new ninjutsu since coming back to the past.

"Yup!" Kushi (it probably wasn't her full name) assured him. "But you need to eat your lunch first."

So he did.

**Author's Note: Yes, I brought in Kushina! She wins. Please note that she was described as a talkative tomboy when she was younger, and is the one from whom Naruto seems to have gotten most of his personality. Minato is **_**definitely**_** more of a serious type of person than Naruto, and while our favorite jinchuuriki has been known to have his Minato-ish moments, it's obvious what he got from each parent. Looks from Yondaddy and character from Kushi-nee-chan.**

**In other news, this story is a no pairing, remember? No het or slash. There will probably be crushes, but this is very much no pairing. The only pairings are canonical - Minato/Kushina pretty much - so please don't get all up in arms. Thanks.  
**

**Heheh... both of Arashi's "Nee-chan"s have K names while he and his two friends have A names... Not intended that way, but whatever.**


	4. Chapter 4

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 4

"So the seals are all air and earth based, except the last one, 'tiger', right?" Arashi asked his newest tutor. Kushi – for he still didn't know her real name – grinned and nodded at him and the child went through the seals quickly before ending with the fire seal of tiger that was common to many Konoha shinobi. With his target in mind, he molded his chakra into the proper form and was pleased to find himself two feet behind Kushi.

Operation Learn Shunshin: success! As was operation sneak up behind Kushi of course.

"You catch on pretty quickly, 'Rashi-chan," Kushi grinned down at him. "I must say you've got my flair for learning ninjutsu, and you're not even six you little imp. I feel like an old maid next to you." She was over dramatic and chipper and definitely mischievous. Arashi could learn to get along with this girl. "So, you got any interesting jutsu you might want to show little old me?"

"Do you know kage bunshin?" Arashi asked. That was really the only jutsu he knew that he could say he knew. His other best technique was the rasengan (and variants), but he couldn't exactly go showing that one about. What if Minato had already started developing it? What if he had already completed it? Well, according to Kakashi, Naruto was the first one to complete it, but Arashi knew what he meant.

"Please, that's a kinjutsu," Kushi sighed. "I mean, all the upper ranks know it, and I've heard that most can pick up the seals easily enough, but there's no way a mere chuunin would be allowed to know it, let alone an outsider like me." She was positively pouting. "Kasumi-san mentioned that you could do it when she was picking up Anko-chan from class last week, but you must be exhausted from training and stuff all day, especially after making one of them just before lunch _and_ learning shunshin. I mean, there's no way you could –"

Arashi caught that she wasn't meaning to challenge him, but he took the challenge regardless and in one seal – he could mold the rest of the technique without the rest and had been doing so for a long time after all – he brought forth one shadow clone. It wasn't surprised to exist and instead set to stretching out its imaginary muscles.

Kushi whistled low in surprise. "Oh, I'm impressed," she grinned. "How did you learn to do that, anyway? Kage bunshin are more difficult to create than Mizu Bunshin. That one is pretty easy if you're near a body of water. I've never heard of any kid that can make any solid clones other than you though."

Even though Kushi was treating him as a child, it wasn't the same way everyone else did. Asuma and Anko treated him like some sort of super-child, Minato was far too careful with him in any circumstance, the Hokage, in the one time they met, treated him the same as any kid on the street if a bit more cautiously... and Kushi was treating him as if he were a prized pupil and yet still somewhat equal.

The pupil bit he could understand, since she was in her second year as an Academy teacher, but the equal bit was a surprise. No one really treated him as an equal. His classmates had always treated him as an inferior (except Hinata, but she was kind of weird), teachers had treated him as both a nuisance and an idiot, though as a genin they at least taught him properly. Even Iruka hadn't treated him as an equal, but a bit more like a pet project and little brother along with some "idiot" thrown in.

Kushi had taught him something and honestly expected him to be capable of something she was not. She may have gone into teacher mode to teach him to use the body flicker technique, but now he was teaching her, and she was just as attentive as he had been.

It was actually kind of disturbing, but Arashi just grinned and started teaching her the seal order. It was a lot harder to learn kage bunshin – especially since Arashi hadn't been able to read all the kanji on the scroll and had "filled in the gaps" on his own. Improvisation probably wasn't the best way to learn a technique, but it was his best skill, and a prized one at that.

"I don't remember exactly what the scroll said," he admitted, "but since kage bunshin is my signature move I'm really good at it. It only took me about three hours to learn it, too!"

"Okay, if your telling the truth, I can see why they gave you to Namikaze-baka," Kushi grumped. "He may be a stick in the mud, but he probably knows more about teaching a prodigy effectively than anyone but maybe Orochimaru-sama. Don't tell him I said that though or he might start to think that I _like_ him or something." She wrinkled her nose, but Arashi was more caught up on the mention of Orochimaru.

Right, everyone else was alive, of course Orochimaru would be. He praised whatever gods there were for not having run into the snake-faced bastard, else he didn't know what he would have done. Probably tried to use a rasengan on the man, get defeated, and then be tossed into the ANBU interrogation cell for attacking him unprovoked. And, if the rasengan had already been created, Minato would want to know how Arashi knew it. So it was a very good thing that Arashi had yet to meet the evil member of the densetsu no sannin.

That thought made him wonder if he would meet Jiraiya at some point – the man was the sensei to his new sensei after all – but dismissed it. As much as he would love the reassurance of Jiraiya's continued existence, he also didn't know how he would react and how that might give him away as someone other than who he was.

So Arashi continued to teach Kushi how to use his favorite jutsu. His only experience with teaching was with teaching Konohamaru how to do Oiroke (which the kid couldn't do quite right because he couldn't use Arashi's henge), so he wasn't as good at it as Kushi, but he still managed. Still, the sun was hovering over the treetops, threatening to drop into darkness before she really got a handle on it.

"You did it!" Arashi cheered happily and he hugged Kushi in favor of her clone, which was getting hugged by _his_ clone. "You must have a lot of stamina. I don't think most shinobi can train for so long." And he had been teaching her – or trying – for the better part of the afternoon.

"Yeah, it's genetic," she grinned, a bead of sweat slowly falling down her face as she released the bunshin. "I'm the first in my family to become a kunoichi here, but back in Uzu no Kuni we were a big shinobi family. High stamina runs in my family's blood. Though I gotta say, we have nothing on you short-stuff." Arashi decided not to take offense. "We should do this again sometime. I'm teaching tomorrow, but maybe next weekend or something. Someone with a lot of chakra like you have needs to learn some good jutsu after all."

Arashi grinned foxily – an expression mirrored by Kushi – and would have spoken were it not for an unexpected interruption.

"Uzumaki! What do you think you're doing?" Arashi wheeled around, wide eyed as Minato appeared on the center log. What? How? He hadn't said his real name and suddenly Minato knew it... but _how_?

"A-ano, Minato-sensei, I can explain," Arashi tried to get out, but he stammered as he said it. They had found out they lied about his name somehow; what else had they found out? Did they knew he was really fifteen? Or that he was a jinchuuriki?

"No need, 'Rashi-chan," Kushi waved her hand dismissively and glared at Minato. "Honestly Namikaze, you think that you can dictate who I spend my time with? If I want to spend my time with your student and teach him when you're busy to bother, then it's hardly any of your business, now is it? Apparently you haven't taught this little chakra monster a single bit of ninjutsu in the whole month you've had him in your grasp, and I taught him to shunshin in only an hour. What a waste!" She sounded quite proud of herself, almost as if Minato _hadn't_ just called Arashi by another name.

"I had important business to attend to, Uzumaki," Minato sounded just an inch from snapping, and his face looked more serious even than it had been upon discovering Arashi's handicap. "I assigned Arashi to train independently on what I have been training him in. He needs to develop his taijutsu before learning any more ninjutsu than he already knows. I don't need you filling his head with ninjutsu that he is too undeveloped to learn."

"Oh, so teaching a five year old how to kill is okay, but not how to get away? Is that what you're saying?" Arashi was suddenly quite lost in the argument between Kushi and Minato. It was almost as if Minato hadn't been calling him out a moment ago.

"I... you know that isn't what I meant!"

"Really? Because that's sure as hell what you said, Namikaze-baka!"

"You guys sound like an old married couple," Arashi stated succinctly. That caused Minato to choke on his retort and actually _fall off_ the log he had perched himself on. Kushi wrinkled her nose and made a fake gagging noise before laughing at her foe's plight. Arashi could feign ignorance for the moment, considering he really was ignorant as to what they were arguing over.

"Gods, what have you done to the kid, Uzumaki?" Minato groaned as he stood from the dirt. "You've contaminated my student, haven't you?"

This time Kushi really did laugh. "Nonsense, he was like that already," she was now poking fun at the blond man. "Nope, all I did was teach him a jutsu and let him have some fun for once, not that an old stick in the mud like you would know what _that_ is. I thought maybe you'd learned to live a little when your hair was pink, but since I learned the kid did that..." Kushi eyed the now-short blond hair was disdain. Minato had it cut after two weeks, when he would have at least a little hair left. It was still hardly more than peach fuzz.

So it was Kushi that Minato was calling Uzumaki... but that couldn't be right, could it? No, no way in hell was that right! Then again, hadn't she said she was from Uzu no Kuni? Not that Arashi had ever heard of such a place, but what if...

"I've had enough of this," Minato stated calmly, his face impenetrable. "Arashi, come on. We're getting Ichiraku for dinner. Hokage-sama gave me some free meal tickets for you; apparently Asuma-kun carried along that I've prohibited you from eating it." Normally, a statement like that would have been slightly joking as Minato allowed himself to loosen up, but obviously he was not at all comfortable in the presence of Kushi.

"Yes Sensei," Arashi replied quickly. While it was rare for Minato to be completely serious, it did happen and it was best for Arashi to be at least less of a goof. Though it called for a good prank later that night or tomorrow morning. "Bye Kushi-nee-chan. See you later!"

Minato barely stayed long enough after that sentence for Arashi to gather chakra for the run before streaking off through the woods. The pace was a lot harder than any he had set previously, and Arashi had to use his newly learned shunshin to catch up at one point. After that he would have had to pause again to gather chakra if they weren't already on the roof across from Ichiraku.

That... was not an experience he was keen on repeated as his legs screamed in protest to the harsh treatment even as he knew a tiny bit of Kyuubi's chakra was fixing whatever damage had been done. It especially hurt when he jumped down to street level, though part of that was his hitai-ate – which had turned around on his neck from the breakneck run – bouncing up and smacking the back of his head. His legs still didn't like supporting him after that drop.

_Note to self_, Arashi sighed, _don't let Minato-sensei get pissed off. I am not a sprinter._

Still, the say was a success. He learned a new jutsu and got to have ramen for dinner. Now he just had to worry about his new handicap.

* * *

Arashi waited until Friday before asking what had been discovered about his new handicap. Not that he didn't want to ask before, and he hadn't forgotten, but he had _thought_ that Minato would tell him without provocation. This turned out to not be the case, and after that he wasn't sure he wanted to ask until his teacher had cooled down from the incident with Kushi (apparently her full name was Uzumaki Kushina).

What he found out was neither good nor bad really, it just was. It had been postulated – whatever that meant – that his chakra behaved like sage chakra (he had a hard time not gawking at that), and they would just have to study it further. Arashi lamented this, but gave it and did all the training exercises that were asked of him and then some.

On Saturday he had some free time after that day's mission; dog walking. The only other option had been babysitting, which they were too young to do, and so Arashi had to deal with running away from a bunch of random dogs. Summon animals had no problem with him, but it seemed that the scent of the Kyuubi was still noticeable enough to regular animals, and they continued to dislike him quite a bit.

With the free time, he had been intending to go spend the afternoon with Asuma and Anko playing ninja (he promised) and then have dinner with Anko's family. Unfortunately, Anko had gotten sick, and Asuma had been invited to watch his older brother's team train, so Arashi had nothing to do unless he wanted to ask Minato for some extra training or something.

Luckily, fate intervened.

"Hey there, 'Rashi-chan!" Kushina called out as she landed beside him from a roof. He didn't wheel around like he might have since it was a crowded street, but he did jump slightly. "What have you been up to since Monday, short stuff?"

"Training, learning to never let you and and Minato-sensei be in the same room, kicking Kakashi's ass... the usual," more the unusual, but Arashi just laughed along with Kushina. She was Uzumaki Kushina; at the very least, she was his aunt if not his mother. He had family and Kushina at least seemed to care, though he couldn't imagine that she didn't. It was an infantile hope to expect anything from her, but already Kushina was added to the list of precious people that Arashi had been building since he arrived. Kasumi, Anko, the Sandaime, Asuma, Asuma's brother (Masato), Minato, Kakashi (if only for what he would be rather than what he was), and Kushina now made up that list.

"That's better than nothing, I suppose," Kushina feigned boredom. "Up for an extra Saturday class?" Were it not for the absolutely vicious grin, Arashi might have said no. As it was, he nodded quickly. He obviously got more than just his stamina from the Uzumaki side. "Wonderful! Now, we'll need sixteen live eels, twelve boxes of jell-o, some piano wire, a pack of explosive notes, water balloons, a pail of orange paint, and Councilmen Danzou's panties."

Arashi could scarcely imagine what they were going to do, but he was certainly going to enjoy it.

* * *

"You are _so_ immature!" Minato snapped at them both when he had caught up. Arashi and Kushina were, by this point, hiding out in Kushina's house – for she did have a house, and all by herself apparently – and she was trying to teach Arashi how to play shogi. He was doing pretty badly, but he could see why Shikamaru played so much. It was good for strategy, just not the sort of strategy that Arashi was good at.

Arashi was tempted to point out that he was five and therefore allowed to be mature, and really seventeen was hardly a mature age either, but he rather liked Kushina's reply better.

"I'm not immature, I just know how to have fun," she retorted easily. She set down her pawn and sent Minato a withering look, as if _he_ were the one who ought to be chided for the prank that was currently irking the council. "Can't say the same about you, Namikaze."

"To be fair," Arashi interjected in a stage whisper, fighting back a laugh as he came up with his support for his first-ever relative, "I think he's gay and trying to hide it from his old sensei." The horrified look on Minato's face made it so _so_ worth it.

He tried to sputter a denial. "Y-you! You know I'm not... I mean, that _jutsu_ you used..." he looked completely helpless, and both Arashi and Kushina collapsed into laughter. "You have no idea what you're saying... Uzumaki, why did you put him up to this? You're corrupting my student _again_!"

"I already told you, I don't corrupt children, I _teach_ them," Kushina gasped out, still laughing at the look of utter horror that had "graced" the face of her house guest. "And all I've taught this particular kid is how to use shunshin no jutsu and a very good application of some of his hard-learned shinobi skills. If he had a proper jounin teacher, say, one who pulled more than a single year at the academy, I might not feel quite so impelled to take his education out of your hands."

"Stealing the underwear of a council member and stuffing it full of eels and jell-o is _not_ a good application," it was getting to the point where Arashi didn't want to see them in the same room together... but he rarely had such high quality entertainment! He could wait until they were at the point when they would be blowing up.

"Maybe not, but it's a good lesson on infiltration and espionage," Kushina started listing with a smirk, "and this kid seems to a be an expert at hiding himself. I spilled orange paint on him you know, and when the ANBU were looking for us he managed to hide from them almost effortlessly. He didn't even try using a henge to hide, smart kid that he is. The piano wire trick with the altered explosive notes was also apparently his first lesson on sealing, though I kinda figured you would have taught him some. Yes, highly useful life skills, I should think."

"And the orange-paint filled water balloons that you used as whoopee cushions? What purpose did that serve?" He sounded highly doubtful.

"Entertainment," was all Kushina replied. She then moved another pawn. "Check mate, Midget. I also taught him to play shogi."

"Again?! But I..." then Arashi paused and grinned. "Liar! I can still do this!" And he moved his knight which blocked the advance of her pawn. "Check. So there."

"See? I taught him a lot today, now get out of my house before I call the Uchiha police on you for breaking and entering," Kushina sent a final grin at the man and turned her attention back to teaching. She was very good at that. "Okay, so now that I'm in check, you -"

"Do you honestly think that I'm not going to tell the Hokage who pranked the council, do you?" Minato deadpanned.

"As my sensei and guardian, since I'm below the mean age of Academy graduates, you're responsible for all my misdemeanors, aren't you?" Arashi asked innocently, blue eyes wide in a sort of freaky-puppy gaze. Minato shuddered and looked away, though he did nod. "So then if we get turned in it's you and Kushi-nee-chan who will get punished. What if they make you serve the punishment together?"

Both of them gagged at this, but Minato tried to maintain a serious face. "It's... even that won't stop me from turning you both in," he persisted, though he didn't look entirely dedicated to his answer. "I can survive being even around _her_ even if it means that she's getting her just desserts for what you two have done. And don't think I'm not going to run you ragged for doing it, either." He was gaining steam; not good.

"But what if the punishment is clean-up duty? I mean, I know you're gay, but I didn't think you'd be that happy to handle Danzou's underwear," that seemed to be the last straw as Minato went pale, then green, and vanished mysteriously from the room while Kushina had fallen over from her seated position on the floor and laughed heartily.

"You, Kazama Arashi, are a gift from the gods," she snickered. "What was he talking about though, your jutsu?" The glint in her eye spoke of evil. Arashi certainly considered not telling – they tended to not like that he invented something as pervy as oiroke no jutsu, and as far as anyone knew he had also invented yuri no jutsu and yaoi no jutsu – but he decided he might as well. The news of his yaoi no jutsu probably had only not reached her because people were afraid she might use it; such is the curse of being a master prankster.

"You have to promise not to tell anyone," he said first. The grin he got in reply was a good response; it meant she would use it in front of everyone, but not tell. "And promise not to hit me." He rubbed a phantom bump from one of the many different women who had been quite irate regarding his technique. Kushina nodded readily.

With no other reason to stall, Arashi drew a breath and called out "Oiroke no jutsu!" In a puff of smoke he transformed into the female form that he had practiced many times and that had inspired so many nosebleeds that it wasn't even funny. Several people's worth of blood had been lost to Naruko after all, and it seemed that Kushina was suitably impressed... and not violent, surprisingly enough.

"Wow, you did a really good job with the proportions, though any girl that well endowed would have some major difficulties with running I think," she nodded walking around the female before her. Arashi was more than a little shocked considering he had never actually had his form critiqued. But he was glad to be tall enough to look Kushina in the eye now, even if the women thought his eyes were somewhere south of the henge form's eyes.

"Kushi-nee-chan!" He harrumphed in the girlish voice that came with the form, crossing his arms over the exposed bosom. "That's really creepy, you know? And my eyes are up here." He was fighting a blush. Did she _have_ to look at the henge like that.

"Oh very funny brat!" Kushina swiped her hand low, to where it would have just barely swiped the top of Arashi's head normally... and instead came in contact with very naked and very female flesh. The smacking noise was also rather audible, and Kushina's surprise was evident. As another test she pulled on the long pigtail on the left.

Quite fed up by being gawked at, Arashi released the henge and another cloud of smoke masked his transformation back to a fully clothed and pint-sized male. And he had no missed not being short, too. But he had years to go before he was that tall again.

It was then that Kushina started worshiping him, so it was probably a good thing that he _did_ teach her his version of the henge, or he would have had his only known relative mad at him.

"So what's up with you and Minato-sensei, anyway?" Arashi inquired when they had returned to their game. He was honestly curious as to what made his sensei hate her and vice a versa. Were the Uzumaki traditionally opposed to the Namikaze? But the Uzumaki were apparently from some country called Uzu, so that couldn't really be the motive unless it was from before the settling of the shinobi villages. Maybe Minato hadn't always been a closet pervert and had been openly perverted before Jiraiya left the village or -

"We were in the same class in the Academy," Kushina shrugged. "He was top in everything for the boys, me for the girls. Back in second year, my hair was really long, and he said it looked pretty; so I cut it short and haven't grown it out since."

"You hate each other because of your _hair_," Arashi deadpanned, not getting the connection. A feud... over her hairstyle? _Seriously_?

"No, that was just the start of our Academy rivalry," Kushina corrected. "We were always at each other's throats, ever since my mother and I arrived in Konoha, and he always hated that an outsider, someone with no blood ties to Konoha, could be just as good as he was. He always said that mom and I had to be spies since we were refugees, and by the time we graduated we were as close to enemies as allies could be. Be glad you weren't around back then; they were a _lot_ worse."

Arashi had a hard time not gaping as he nodded. So the Yondaime was a xenophobe... not even a war hero yet, and he had been distrustful of someone from outside the village walls that early in his life. What must he think of Arashi then?

"Well, let's get back to our game," Kushina smiled and moved a pawn. "Your turn."

Arashi sighed and decided he could think later. He had to get his butt kicked at shogi again.

* * *

Weeks passed and feel back into routine, except for the time with Kushina, which was always a surprise. She never seemed to have any schedule that she followed except that she taught four out of seven days a week. No progress had been made on Arashi's handicap either, as no one had found Jiraiya yet. Minato was considering asking the toads to give the perverted sage a message, but he claimed that they didn't respect him enough yet since he couldn't summon Gamabunta like Jiraiya could.

The first chuunin exam of Arashi and Kakashi's genin days passed without Minato even mentioning them, instead Arashi heard from Kasumi when Kiyoshi and his new genin team – Asuma's older brother's team – were sent and returned unsuccessfully. It was towards the end of the month delay between the initial exam and the one that would decide who made chuunin in all the countries that Minato finally decreed them prepared for a C-rank mission.

It had been five months since Arashi arrived in the past, and he felt that they _more_ than deserved it. He and Kakashi had been working so hard for those five months that he had to wonder why the silver haired child's older counterpart hadn't required the same of Team 7. Team Bed Head – with Minato's hair back to a more acceptable length – were given a patrol mission on the border between Hi no Kuni and Kawa no Kuni. It was a very safe mission since the River Country was no threat to Konoha what so ever.

Still, Arashi packed diligently the night before leaving, a single extra outfit and other necessities for the two weeks away. The next morning he was up when Minato started their breakfast, and he drank the miso without complaint, too excited. Since they would still be in transit come lunch, Arashi packed bento for all three members of the group so they could continue on quickly.

Or he would have packed three, but Minato stopped him before he could start the third. "Don't bother packing one for 'Kashi-kun," Minato had a sort of half-sad half-nervous expression. "Something happened yesterday when he went home... it slipped my mind... but he can't make it. We'll see him when we get back from the mission though, okay?"

"Something" happened. That meant either an injury or someone died. It was something shinobi knew, when "something" happened, and Minato wouldn't expect Arashi to know that. If it were an injury then Minato probably would have brought him to visit Kakashi or something, so someone close to his fellow apprentice must have died, or nearly, and there was only one person who Kakashi was close to.

Let it never be said that Arashi had no skills with logic. While he was better with Naruto logic, he could follow a train of thought to the end – provided nothing shiny caught his attention that is. Those shiny things were simply too attention drawing...

But that was besides the point. While Minato wasn't looking, Arashi created a kage bunshin which then proceeded to make up a third bento and jump out the picture window at the front of the apartment. Kakashi would need a friend, even if they weren't actually friends. Especially considering there was no one else to comfort the most serious third of Team Bed Head, though Minato came in a close second for that one.

Tucking both bento into his bag, Arashi waited for his sensei to finish his breakfast patiently before they left for the West gate.

Two weeks alone with Minato, without any fun interludes, on a mission. And Kakashi was going to be home alone but for a couple hours – if that – when he would have a clone for company.

It didn't seem right, but there was nothing else for it. Arashi couldn't do anything short of his duty, and he'd already gone beyond that by sending that clone.

Only time would tell if that would help Kakashi at all.

* * *

"What do you want?" Snapped Kakashi. He was sitting on the corner of his bed, simply staring at the wall, but the bunshin couldn't really be surprised that the genin had caught him so quickly. "You're supposed to be on the mission with Minato-sensei." What did surprise the clone was that Kakashi spoke to it; he usually didn't talk to Arashi since he didn't hold as much stock by the rules as Kakashi did.

"He is, they should be out of the village by now," the clone nodded. "He thought you could use some company, but he couldn't leave the mission. So... here I am. I hope you don't mind much." Kakashi didn't answer, and the clone just sighed. "I brought you a bento. You can eat it now or later, but I thought you wouldn't be thinking of your own needs at the moment." No response again. "There's also a thermos of eggplant soup."

Kakashi nodded slowly in thanks and the clone set both the bento and the thermos down on Kakashi's book case. It was sparse, not that this was much of a surprise. Kakashi was a five – almost six – year old child and not one to care over much about reading. There were a couple of jutsu scrolls though, and the shinobi hand book.

"What's that?" It asked, seeing the sheathed blade in Kakashi's lap.

"The White Fang," Kakashi responded. That was a name Arashi had always heard in correspondence with a person though. Konoha's White Fang, a man who had been on par with the Sannin until his fall into ignominy. Jiraiya had spoken highly of him... while drunk. "My father's chakra blade."

"It must be nice to have something of his," the clone stated. He knew better than to be too soft on the grieving. Pity was looked upon with scorn by the shinobi world, because it cheapened death. On his way in he had heard someone say that Hatake Sakumo had committed sepukku to expunge the shame of a failed mission nearly a year past.

Kakashi didn't seem to appreciate the effort though, and glared up at Arashi. "What do _you_ know? You don't know what it's like!" The standard proclamation of someone who didn't _want_ to be understood. Arashi may not know much about psychology – especially for kids – but he knew that Sasuke was like that too. Except there was no one for Kakashi to exact his revenge on.

"Of course I don't, Arashi never knew his parents to begin with," but that wasn't entirely true as Arashi was now fairly certain that Kushina was his mother since she was the last of the Uzumaki, and he had his suspicions regarding his father. "Doesn't mean I can't give you lunch though."

The younger of the two – though by birthday he was almost a month older that the original, and the clone was technically twelve minutes and thirty-four seconds old (but that wasn't the point) – slumped and went back to looking at the chakra blade resting across his knees. "Why are you here?"

"Well, partly because you need to eat," the bunshin sounded so reasonable, didn't it? "And partly because while it's said that those who break the rules are trash, anyone who abandons a friend is far worse than trash." It consciously quoted Kakashi himself, and unconsciously quoted a boy who had only started at the Academy in April.

Kakashi didn't speak to it again, but he didn't try to dispel it either. The clone stayed as company for the newfound orphan until it ran out of chakra at noon the next day.

When its memories loaded into Arashi's head, the genin couldn't keep the sad look from his face.

**Author's Note: Teehee... okay, so I'm having **_**way**_** too much fun with this story. And I just realized that Minato and Kushina are like a sort of reversed James and Lily, except neither of them particularly like the other... yet. No worries, I shall not deny the birth of Naruto. Yeah, Sakumo is dead now, poor 'Kashi-chan! But, as we all know, he lives on. Hm... wonder how this will effect things, if at all.**

**In other news, I posted another challenge on my profile if anyone is interested. Naruto, dimension-travel, focusing especially on Minato, Naruto, and the Sannin. There are a couple other challenges up there too, but not for Naruto.  
**

**Oh, and you guys? Rock. Epically. HpatHC has been my most successful story, and this one... well, this one is beating it. Badly. Probably because there is a larger market for Naruto time travel than HP/Ouran crossovers, but whatever. Either way, this story's stats are kicking ass and taking names.  
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	5. Chapter 5

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 5

Arashi was relieved to set foot back in Konoha. While he suspected that Minato's mission-mode wasn't as bad as usual – after all, it was the Iwa nin they were threatening to go to war with, not Kawa no Kuni – he had still be very serious about the whole matter. Arashi could see that Minato was a good leader even as a teenager, but did he have to be so completely frigid? At least in Konoha he relaxed some.

More so, Arashi wanted to make sure that everything was okay with Kakashi. His clone had spent over twenty-four hours with his fellow apprentice, and Kakashi had only got up to go to the bathroom and get dinner and breakfast at the clone's insistence. That had been two weeks ago, and Arashi wanted to get the mission report – not that there was anything _to_ report as the mission had a 99.9 percent chance of being without any conflict more important than whether to have fish or deer for dinner.

For once, that tiny likelihood of something going wrong did not, and Arashi spent two weeks patrolling and training as much as he could while on duty. The other team that he been sent out – a genin team with one chuunin in the mix and a jounin sensei – also split up into groups of two so that four people were always on duty, leaving eight hours for the other pair to eat and sleep as necessary.

"I'm sure 'Kashi-kun is fine, 'Rashi-kun," Minato had said dozens of times. It was pretty obvious that he had no idea what he was talking about and had, in fact, very little experience with children. Little kids do not walk in on their father's corpse and come out of it "okay". Actually, this could explain a lot of the things that were wrong with Kakashi later in life.

Arashi certainly hadn't done anything that would cause a man to suicide after all, let alone Hatake Sakumo, especially considering his shameful mission failure – the one that sparked the escalating conflict with Iwa – had occurred before Arashi arrived. It had nothing to do with Arashi, except that Kakashi, strange as it was, was like a friend to him. Not quite a friend, but similar enough. And as his clone had quoted, those who fail to take care of their friends are less than trash.

Maybe Kushina or Kasumi would have looked in on Kakashi when they heard, if only for Arashi's sake, but he doubted that Kakashi had been around anyone but himself and Arashi's clone since it happened. Well, and there had doubtlessly been a short interview with the Uchiha Police Force, but other than that... Kakashi had been alone since the clone ran out of juice.

But he filled out the mission scroll as required with hardly any thought (thankfully his handwriting was more legible than the average five year old, even if it wasn't on par with most Academy graduates) and departed quickly. Minato tried to tell him to hold on, but Arashi wanted to see Kakashi.

His silver-haired teammate was in the exact same place he had been two weeks ago, though he had obviously still been taking care of himself if the take-out boxes in the trash were any indication. It seemed that Kakashi had even been bathing and keeping up on his hygiene; Arashi was impressed, but not enough that he wasn't going to do anything "drastic" by the standards of the still-grieving child.

"Come on, let's go get something to eat," Arashi said as soon as he had inspected Kakashi. Being a little kid was fun, but he could still be a _responsible_ little kid if he so desired. "My treat at the barbecue place near the Hokage's Tower." Kakashi looked at Arashi for a moment, surprised to see the not-quite-as-groomed child (well he _had_ just gotten back from a mission) before he nodded slowly. Whether or not he actually wanted to go or if it was because he just didn't feel up to arguing, it didn't matter.

Arashi was getting his teammate out of the house. It was an accomplishment in his opinion.

Sure, Kakashi was still as stiff as ever, and twice as quiet, but it was something. But Arashi got them seats, despite the waitress saying that two five-year-old kids shouldn't be out alone (he claimed that as genin they were responsible and of _course_ he had the money to pay for their food!), and even through Kakashi only picked at the meat, it was something.

They ate quietly. It was better than nothing.

"Hey there, 'Rashi-kun, 'Kashi-kun!" Arashi wheeled around to find Minato leaning against their booth. And beside him a much younger Jiraiya (a bit thinner, but mostly the same) stood scrutinizing the children. "Boys, this is my sensei, Jiraiya. Jiraiya, sunshine is Kazama Arashi and moonlight is Hatake Kakashi." Arashi twitched slightly. Sunshine and moonlight? What the _hell_ had Minato been drinking and why wasn't he sharing? (Aside from the obvious "five year old children" thing.)

Aside from that, Arashi had imagined seeing Jiraiya and being... well, teary eyed and ecstatic and any other number of emotions. He wasn't.

Although that might have something to do with the fact that Jiraiya was busy watching the back end of a waitress rather than paying any mind to the two genin and one jounin that he was supposed to be hanging around with at this point.

So while Kakashi said in a quiet and serious voice that it was nice to meet "Jiraiya-sama", Arashi looked straight at him and in his regular petulant tone said, "Stop looking at that woman's butt, Ero-sennin. It's rude to stare."

Jiraiya choked on his own spit, Kakashi choked on a piece of barbecued pork he had been eating, Minato chastised Arashi for saying that to Jiraiya (all while hiding a minute smile), the waitress blushed, and Arashi just grinned. He hadn't caused any chaos in weeks, and until he saw Kushina this would have to do.

By the time the waitress had scurried off, and everyone in the foursome was a bit calmer, Arashi found himself sporting a small bruise on top of his head from being hit by Jiraiya. Apparently he didn't like his perving to be called out by "some brat with weird eyes". Not that he minded being called a pervert in general, he was just mad about Arashi scaring off his eye-candy.

"Anyway, brat, you're coming with Minato and I," Jiraiya grabbed Arashi by the back of his jacket (he was wearing the top of his black jump suit) like one would a cat. "Nice to meet 'cha 'Kashi-chan." And Jiraiya leapt away with Arashi in his grip. Even though dinner was left unfinished, at least Arashi had kept his word to pay. He hadn't even been able to say good-bye to his "friend."

They halted at Minato's preferred training ground, or at least the place where he preferred to take Arashi and Kakashi.

"Alright! Let's get cracking!" Jiraiya shouted with glee. "Kid, start molding chakra!" Not entirely sure why, Arashi did as he was told, taking about as much as he normally did for a spar against Kakashi. Jiraiya whistled. "I didn't mean... never mind. Minato, you weren't joking about this kid being a chakra monster! And keep molding short stuff."

Arashi sighed mentally but continued molding his chakra, equal physical energy to spiritual. He had learned to ignore the buzzing in the air long ago.

This, whatever it was, would take a while.

* * *

Jiraiya of the densetsu no sannin was curious. He found out from three different messengers within seven hours that Namikaze Minato, his student, and Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Hokage and his teacher, wanted him back in Konoha for reasons unknown. He couldn't deny the combined summons and summoned a large toad for transport. That toad then told him that Minato had requested his return to Konoha.

Considering Minato had yet to earn respect from Gamabunta, that really meant this was important, so the journey went quickly.

Only a week later, Jiraiya had to retire toad-travel as he entered the cramped woods of Konoha. It was his habit to not take the roads and instead leapt from treetop to treetop. He would have continued straight into the city if he had seen something... orange.

Orange was not as easy to find in the Country of Fire as one might think, so it caught Jiraiya's attention. He figured that he could take a moment to figure out what it was and leapt down. There wasn't anyone else in the area, and no one ever really came to this part of the territories of Konoha. It was a secret hiding place that Tsunade and Dan had always preferred (not that Jiraiya would ever tell the woman in question that he actually know this).

He picked up the orange monstrosity. It was actually a man's jacket, a rather heavy one, with black shoulders and hem. On the back was a red swirl, that of the Uzumaki clan undoubtedly, though why Kushina would requisition such a thing – she was the last of the Uzumaki after all – was beyond the thirty-year old. And judging by the damage done to it, it had been left for a very long time. Probably months.

Before he could rummage through the pockets, he noticed something small and shiny fall from the jacket. Curiosity killed the shinobi, but Jiraiya figured it couldn't be _too_ dangerous and leaned down to pick up the offending object. It was a necklace.

A necklace that he very much recognized.

Jiraiya's breath seized for a moment as he swiped up Tsunade's necklace from the grass. This could not be good. He placed the necklace in his pocket and decided to take the jacket with him. Why, he wasn't sure, but perhaps it would be helpful in some way to discern why Senju Tsunade's necklace was in the woods minus the busty woman herself.

It was with great purpose that Jiraiya leapt from roof to roof on his way to the Hokage Tower. He didn't bother with the door either and went in through the window to the Hokage's office, thoroughly confused by this point. He was relieved to see the old man behind his desk and Minato on the other side, both ignoring his entrance in favor of greeting him. The sage simply nodded and moved around the desk to stand beside Minato before Hiruzen.

"Sensei, I found this on my way into town," Jiraiya dropped first the dilapidated orange jacket on the desk, and then drew Tsunade's necklace to place on it as well.

Neither of the men present took that very well.

"I saw Tsuande the day before your messengers got to me, and she was wearing her necklace," continued Jiraiya before they could get the wrong idea. "The best I can figure is that it was stolen and the thief met a sticky end. But this jacket and necklace were obviously in the same place for ages."

"But... that can't be right," Minato already had his mind going, obviously having forgotten whatever he was saying to the Hokage before Jiraiya intruded. "There's only one of this necklace in the world."

These things were debated for a while, but no conclusion was reached. The necklace and jacket had obviously been in the same place for _months_, but Tsunade had the necklace a week ago. There was only one necklace in existence. These were facts, but nothing else could truly be ascertained because they were all true. Both the necklace and jacket were given over to an ANBU – Crane, a woman who Jiraiya knew had been on Minato's ANBU team before he quit in March – and though he was still uneasy, Jiraiya took a seat.

"Jiraiya, we called you here because of a potential threat to Konoha," Hiruzen began. The toad summoner was all ears. "Five and a half months ago, a small child of age five arrived in the village. We know for a fact that he is not under a henge, but we also know that he is not as he seems. Due to his age, we cannot properly interrogate the boy, either. There is too great a chance that he is a valuable asset, but the chance that he is a threat is just as high.

"Thus far we have done our best to make the boy feel at home. According to reports, he is well adjusted and enjoys playing ninja with not only my youngest son, but the daughter of the Mitarashi line and other children who attend the Academy. It is obvious who he does and does not trust just by placing him in a room with those people, and he seems to mostly make his decisions quickly."

"A kid, huh?" Jiraiya leaned back in his seat, speculating. "Why did you go out of your way to get me then? If he's getting along with Asuma-kun and Kiyoshi-san's daughter, why call me in anyway? I'm no good with kids. And you said he's five? Kind of young to consider him a threat."

"Sensei, the kid knew kage bunshin before he ever entered the city," Minato spoke up. "And he knows a technique that could disable any red-blooded male; I suspect there's one for women as well. He's had training, but he won't say where he's from or who taught him. Nothing about his past slips except that he mentioned his sensei in the past. 'They were all perverts, but like family.' When I asked more, all he said was that all three could be dead for all he knew."

That meant Minato knew the kid pretty closely, didn't it? "So if you're already in the kid's good books... why me? It's not because you think I'll be similar to his previous sensei, do you?" If that was the case... well, neither those guys would expose a child to Jiraiya's ways. His favorite books were rated X for a reason.

"No, it's because of his handicap; he can't mold chakra when he has adrenalin releasing, any of his organs or muscles are respirating anaerobically, or when his heart rate exceeds 100 beats per minute," Minato sighed. "It's like a less extreme version of that sage-thingy you do. Plus, his eyes look kind of like a frogs, but they're blue and just sort of ringed with red like he's been crying or found some eye liner." It seemed like there was something he wasn't mentioning, but Jiraiya let it pass.

"So you want me to help him with his handicap despite the fact that you think he might be some sort of sleeper agent," somehow he failed to see the logic from that angle, but he nodded, sighing. "Alright. So where is this brat?"

Hiruzen seemed to take it in stride, but Minato paused to think. "Um... last I recall, 'Rashi-kun said he was going to treat 'Kashi-kun to dinner since we left the day after Sakumo-sama died."

"Sakumo... you mean Hatake Sakumo?" The White Fang had been a good friend to Jiraiya and his team. The last time Jiraiya had been in Konoha, it had been to see Sakumo after the failed mission nearly a year ago, though the man's kid had been at school during the visit. It had also been his first "visit" of what Jiraiya was calling his journeyman stage of life. At the ripe old age of 34 (1), he was one of the wandering shinobi of Konoha. "You took his kid as an apprentice, didn't you?"

"Sort of," Minato then explained that he had some sort of dual-apprenticeship with Sakumo's child and the mysterious handicapped boy. They functioned like a team on missions and trained like apprentices, or something like that. "So you'll meet at our training ground tomorrow?"

"Hell no, I'm sleeping in tomorrow," the idea of going back to his own house where he had a giant bed and some quality porn almost made him want to ditch immediately. "We can collect the brat now since I'm already here. Lead me to your students, Minato!" Jiraiya made a show of being jovial and energetic, but on the inside he was more nervous than anything. What about that necklace? The whole affair screamed at him, and Jiraiya kept thinking that it might have something to do with this kid.

The thought was only reinforced when he caught sight of the strange kid. His eyes _were_ a bit like a toad's, by the rimming and the sideways pupil, though the slitting was more like a cat's. Also, the strange whisker-like scars were a bit eye-catching. Perhaps to do with some blood limit? But in his two years of traveling, Jiraiya had yet to see anything quite like it.

And as soon as the boy spoke to him – though his attention had been caught by a rather shapely waitress – Jiraiya wasn't sure if he liked the kid or not. But he could already tell the kid liked him, strangely enough.

He set the kid to molding chakra almost immediately after they arrived at Minato's training ground and was blown away. Not only was the kid molding chakra – somehow he hadn't believed the story about a child prodigy, and no kid that old could mold chakra except Minato's students – but the sheer amount! He had to wonder at how much control the kid might have, but guessed it could be a lot. There was also the fact that as the chakra was collected, the child's pupils dilated and the irises turned gold. The red liner also spread some.

But beyond that, Jiraiya could feel the telltale tingle on his skin that he knew far too well from his training at Myobokuzan. It was the feel of natural energy being collected by someone. He had met plenty of frogs who used their chakra that way, molding it into sage chakra instead of the regular variety, but never another human, and _definitely_ not a kid.

He told the kid to go work off all that chakra playing or something and called Minato to come back to the Hokage Tower with him. This could not wait.

And Jiraiya divulged what his research – not his usual "research" – had dug up. The kid was naturally molding an incomplete form of sage chakra, with an equal amount of physical and spirit energy, but not enough natural energy to completely supercharge the chakra. However it was still more potent than regular chakra. It was probably why the kid could still use regular techniques, since there wasn't enough interference. Then again, the kid was only using techniques that seemed to take a lot of chakra, so that could be it too.

"This kid needs proper sage training, Sensei," Jiraiya sighed. "I can't give it, I'm not good enough with sage chakra, and I know Minato can't either since he was never called to Myobokuzan. It's probably only with the actual training that the kid can find a way around his handicap."

"Then I cannot allow it," the aging monkey summoner sighed. "Perhaps when I am certain that he is loyal to us and not to some outside party such as Iwa. For now, we need all of our shinobi in case the current political atmosphere escalates too much further. You understand, don't you?"

And he did, though Jiraiya had to admit he wasn't too happy with the decision. But a little kid wandering in to town... even if he wasn't really a spy, kids heard things and were loose-lipped. He also knew from personal experience that the thing with Iwagakure _was_ going to escalate. He had spent the past three months infiltrating their city as a seal master, and it was obvious that they were preparing for war.

"I'm in town for three days, then I'm going to look for Tsunade," Jiraiya sighed. He had some "research" to do and then he was going to sleep.

* * *

A month and a half after Jiraiya left Konoha again, Arashi had settled back into the regular routine. Team Bed Head had done one C-rank mission since then, an escort mission that faced only one small gang of bandits. Kakashi and Arashi had taken the entire gang down with ease, earning Konoha a better reputation among the merchants who had originally been cross about being escorted by two children barely old enough for school.

But, aside from the one week that that mission took, Arashi had been doing much the same as he did before the death of Kakashi's father. Of course, there was some variation via Kushina – his _mother_ – but not much.

Arashi was quite content to walk to the mission's office after a light time of training that morning. They had prepared for another two-week C-rank mission that was to set out at noon – having requested it the day before in honor of Arashi's birthday, the only acknowledgement given by the team (though the rest of his precious people were a bit more celebratory) – and Arashi was rather pleased to get something more interesting. Routine was what killed a shinobi; it made him predictable. And, really, spontaneity was in his blood courtesy of the Uzumaki line.

Kakashi wasn't much better, but there was some difference. He was no longer brooding, and while he still glared it wasn't a "why am I even around you?" glare, but a "stop it. NOW" glare. Quite the difference in Arashi's opinion. Though that might have been because Minato had insisted that Kakashi stay with them, which Arashi suspected was actually at the Hokage's recommendation. Either way, the house dynamic had barely changed except that meals were now larger, so Arashi hardly had to accommodate it. Aside from taking care to tease Kakashi in the mornings when he _really_ had bed head.

So they entered the Hokage Tower to meet with their client, who was supposed to be ironing out the last details in their scroll. It was a very simple mission; some bandits with no shinobi background were terrorizing his village. They only let merchants through because they were using the civilians for… something, and therefore supplies were needed. The client had snuck onto a merchant's wagon rather than be stuck in the town and had come for help.

It smelled a little fishy, but only because Arashi had come to find all C-rank missions suspect due to the mission Tazuna had hired Team 7 for. He was quite happy to head West with his team to find the village. Kakashi was amazingly fast for a six year old – his birthday was in September, almost a month before – though his stamina wasn't as advanced. They couldn't run much of the way.

"Hey, Minato-sensei, what if the bandits hire some ninja before we get there?" It had barely struck him as a possibility, but it was one. While Konoha was disinclined to help amoral clients, other nations had less income and would take literally any job that came their way, regardless of the clientele.

"Arashi, it's a C-rank," Minato rolled his eyes. Arashi had asked such questions each mission that came up, so it was nothing new. "Just leave it be, alright? We'll be just fine." Arashi pretended to be mad at the dismissal and stayed quiet the rest of the way, instead playing with a small ball that Anko had given him. It was supposed to help with his hand-eye coordination, but he didn't think he needed it much.

This was disproved as the ball hit him in a face a few times, but that was entirely beside the point.

The journey took three days, with Minato occasionally giving his students tips on how to keep away the boredom while training. Naruto didn't find using his chakra to unstuck dirt from his shins to be very interesting, though he did find he could use a little bit of wind chakra to move the dirt on the ground and erase their tracks. If Minato noticed his elemental manipulation, he completely ignored it in favor of telling Kakashi how to increase his stamina.

Two miles out from where the town was reported to be, Minato ordered both children to put their hitai-ate away, as he did the same. They were going to masquerade into town as a father and his two sons – henge could fool civilian bandits easily after all – come to visit some relative who didn't really exist. Once they were in the town, they could find out what was really going on.

One mile out of town, they came across a rounin astride a horse, his katana worn quite openly on his hip. He was even dressed in a traditional hakama and kimono, which Arashi thought was overdoing it, but he said nothing and just acted like a regular carefree kid out with his father and brother. It wasn't a hard act to put up given his suspicions regarding who Minato might be, and that he was trying to open Kakashi up some anyway.

"Hold it sir," the horseman said, making sure to block their path. Arashi looked pretty much like he always had, though without the freaky eyes and scars while all the effort Kakashi had made was to turn his hair blond and switch the mask to bandages. "What's your business?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry, we're heading into town to visit my sister," Minato recited their story. "Is there some sort of problem with that?" The forests were gone so close to the farming community, replaced by rice fields.

"Not as such," he was wary, and rightfully so. "Give your names. I'm afraid a convict who was up for execution a couple weeks ago snuck by the guard, so we have to be careful. He killed a woman and her child; we don't want him to return."

The man who hired them claimed that the bandits had killed his wife and youngest son. His other children were staying with relatives.

"I'm Kurogawa Sadao, and these are my sons, Takashi," Minato gestured to Kakashi, "and Hirashi (2)." That was Arashi's alias. Minato didn't want to accidentally mix them up, so they had names that had the same nicknames. "Can we go through? If what you said is right, I would like to be in town where I can better protect my sons. I tell them not to trim their toenails at night, and I'd rather that not be obsolete (3)."

"Just check in at the garrison before you go to meet with your sister," the rounin decided after a moment of thought. "No one is allowed out of the town unless they are a merchant or farmer, however, until the murderer is caught. So for your sake, I would hope we catch him soon."

Minato nodded and Arashi waved a vigorous goodbye while Kakashi played up the "nervous around strangers" act since he wasn't one to be hyperactive. Arashi took great care to bounce along excitedly behind Minato, poke Kakashi from time to time (just for his act of course), and generally make a childish nuisance of himself. He was quite experienced in being on a sugar high, or having an attention disorder, or whatever, so it was no stretch on his acting skills.

The town was, strangely enough, rather lively for one terrorized as the reports had claimed. True, there were bandits and rounin wandering everywhere, and most people wandering the streets would step out of their way and scurry off, but they were generally not too worried. Arashi made a show of whipping his head around to try to take everything in at once, while Kakashi was far calmer. Meanwhile, one would think Minato was born in that town with how he seemed to know his way about – his secret being the map their employer had given him.

The garrison gave them no trouble, stamping the forged papers under a genjutsu and generally having no problem with the three strangers who entered the town. Minato made a show of not telling anyone they were there so they could "surprise his sister in the morning" while they took up a room at the inn.

Arashi couldn't help but stare out the window from their small room. Something wasn't at all right. These people seemed not very worried at all about having cutthroats among them, which was what the bandits had been made out to be. People walked laughing in the streets, farmers carrying their newly-reaped crops into town where merchants were already saddling up horses and preparing wagons to take those supplies to other towns. It seemed a regular happy farm community but for the fact that there was a rounin every few blocks. The town couldn't have more than a thousand people at its core, maybe twelve hundred counting the actual farms, yet he had already seen over fifty traditionally dressed men with swords.

"So you noticed?" Minato was in full-on mission mode again rather than being the fake-father he had been on the road. Arashi only nodded his response though. He wasn't entirely sure _what_ he was noticing, but he had noticed it. "We're pushing the plan back by three days for more observation and data gathering. You can go to sleep tonight, and tomorrow play up the curious kid… not that _you_ would really need to play it up."

Another nod, and Minato pulled him away from the window to get dinner at the bar downstairs.

Maybe the fishiness hadn't been paranoia after all.

* * *

On the second day in town, Minato pretended to find out that his sister had moved away from town recently, taking the second name mentioned (as taking the first was always suspicious). He spoke with the locals about how long they expected everyone to be stuck in town and whatever he could find out without being suspicious in a trying-to-not-be-suspicious way.

Kakashi continued to be the shy, introverted son, while his "twin" ran around playing with the children of the farmers who were too young to help with the harvest and learning things from them. Children were like hidden microphones, only better because they could be found and viewed as harmless. One of the children was actually the child of one of the so-called bandits, and was completely normal. The child's mother was the daughter of one of the farmers, and had been married for seven years – she claimed her husband was a police officer.

On the third day, both Arashi and Minato continued their lines of questioning while Kakashi listened in on whatever conversations he could, though he couldn't be out as long because he didn't have the stamina to hold his henge for more than a few hours without a nap or meal in between.

The information that they gathered from the relatively carefree civilians and sword-bearing policemen differed greatly from what the client had told them. The swordsmen didn't seem inclined to oppress or attack anyone, though they were a bit arrogant sometimes (one farmer grumbled about having to give the police officers apples for free if they wanted them), but otherwise much like a regular police force.

Also, when asking about the recent murder of mother and child, the villagers all claimed it was the woman's husband, Inoue Hachiro, the client. The two living children, Keiichi and Keiji, were staying with the man's older brother, Rokuro (4). So far, the only thing that matched up was that no one but merchants could leave – except farmers could as well to tend their fields – and that had only happened since the murder as a safety precaution.

Minato decided they would leave with first light on the fourth morning, but they could spend the third in town just to be sure. They had been hired to free the village, no more, and the village wasn't imprisoned in any way that their client had not caused directly. The mission was everything, but Minato wasn't going to order two children to slaughter innocents, which he was not inclined to do either.

It was right at noon, when Arashi was playing with the policeman's child again, that the first hint of something wrong reached the town. And it wasn't something wrong with the town itself, but the horseman who had met Team Bed Head riding into the town that was wrong. The people immediately scattered, going into homes. His message was a bad one, after all.

"Get out of the way! Inoue's back, and he isn't alone," he was riding straight to the garrison, completely bypassing everyone but to get them away. A woman tried to pull Arashi back into a building, but he dropped his henge and leapt away. If he was going to fight, it would be for Konoha.

Minato already had the three headbands in hand, Kakashi right behind him as they landed in the street.

As they ran toward the edge of town, the armed police trailing not too far behind, Arashi caught sight of just who they were fighting a moment after Minato did.

It was only when his teacher swore that Arashi realized just how bad it was to see three rock ninja with their employer.

**Author's Note: Yes, there are nefarious things happening in this little farming village… but what exactly? Hm… well, you'll find out next time. I'm trying to work this story in a more Naruto-style but not, unlike HPatHC (which was neither HP style, nor Ouran style, I will admit). And yeah, I kinda forgot about Tsunade's necklace. But this still fits into my plan, so...**

**Sorry this took so long to get out. There were a mix of things – cabin fever, Christmas, reading manga, familial obligation, and getting plagiarized (the author was kind enough to remove that particular story from their page) – that kinda made writing the first part of this chapter more than a bit of a chore. On the bright side, I have now read xxxHOLiC, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, Perfect Girl Evolution, and I beat up a snow man to take out my anger about the plagiarism thing (also, my pok****é****mon on diamond currently win quite epically even though I only have 5 badges).**

(1) This is a guestimate.

(2) Kurogawa (black river), Sadao (decisive man), Takashi (elevated, praiseworthy), Hirashi (made up, but I have it mean the same as Hiroshi – generous, tolerant, prosperous).

(3) It is said that if you trim your toenails at night, you won't live to see your parents' funeral (I was reading xxxholic, though I already know plenty of superstitions).

(4) Hachiro (eighth son), Keiichi (square jewel first son), Keiji (respectful second son), Rokuro (sixth son).


	6. Chapter 6

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 6

If Arashi had to describe the shinobi who had come with their employer, he would say that they were large and mean-looking. All solidly built, and undoubtedly of the earth affinity with maybe a tiny bit of variation. Inoue himself had seemed like an innocuous farmer before, but now, dressed in the Iwa chuunin uniform, it was obvious that his muscles were not come by from doing farm work day in and day out.

Minato came to a halt a twenty meters short of the four foreign agents, and Arashi realized that he had never seen Minato this serious. Four chuunin against two genin and a jounin... the outcome was probably obvious.

"Your mission was to kill the swordsmen," Inoue only looked a little irked at the group as he shouted over the distance. "Can't you tree huggers do anything right? Looks like framing Konoha for this will be a bit more difficult than I thought. Sorry sir." But he didn't look terribly repentant.

It began seconds later, though if asked, Arashi couldn't say which group struck first. What Arashi did know was that Minato was trying to engage all the chuunin at once rather than allow Kakashi and Arashi to get involved. It was a reasonable idea, but not really. Because four against one, when the opponents' levels were unknown, was just _stupid_. And Arashi couldn't let Minato be stupid and suicide like that.

As soon as the opportunity struck, Arashi leapt forward and tackled one of the men by the knees. It was an unorthodox move, and it did get one of the Iwa nin away from Minato. Arashi had to jump off of his newly acquired foe to avoid a swipe. And then he started doing as Minato had taught him; he used the "chibi-taijutsu" (Kushina's name for it). He was hardly at what could be considered a genin level in the style that had been designed for his use, but it would have him time to figure out what to do.

Provided he could last more than a minute, which was doubtful. Arashi was a genin and had the body of a six year old; it was inevitable that he would be struck by his opponent very quickly and knocked a good distance. Any other kid his size taking such a hit would probably not be able to get up, but Arashi had always been stubborn, and he had enhanced healing on his side.

Not two seconds after he stopped skidding, Arashi was back on his feet and formed a few clones that went with him to strike. The chuunin had kept track of which was real, but he also was completely unaware that Arashi could form kage bunshin. He made a satisfying splash when he landed in an irrigation canal that ran along the side of the road. The accomplishment didn't exactly have much of an impact, since being tackled by several children wasn't very effective when those children were all dispersed easily. But it was something.

There were very few things that Arashi outright hated. Among them were Orochimaru (thank the gods they had yet to meet in this time), people who judged others without knowing them, the three minutes it took to cook instant ramen, and – most importantly – being weak. Because if he was weak, Arashi couldn't protect his precious people. If he was weak, he had to rely on the fox. His handicap made him weak. His size and age made him weak.

This was only more pronounced as he had to dive out of the way of a stray kunai from Kakashi's fight – the real child in the group was more adept at the new taijutsu than Arashi, partly because he never had a "brawler" style to begin with – and met an uppercut from his own opponent.

Quite simply, Arashi was not good enough to fight this opponent, and it was infuriating.

"Just sit down and shut up, short stuff," the chuunin scoffed when Arashi got up yet again. "Tsuchikage-sama's always looking for talented kids, even if they _are_ tree huggers. Stop fighting and you can have a home in Iwagakure instead of _under_ it, got that?" Arashi simply drew on his already shortened chakra reserves – he hadn't molded much before the fight, and his heart rate was already too high to mold more – to create another bunshin and dove back into the fight.

The clone was taken down by a single kick to the chest that would have broken Arashi's ribs, or startled his heart. Simultaneously, Arashi was lifted off the ground by his throat. The human neck was not meant to support the weight of a body; the arms and legs, sure, but the neck? Definitely not. That's why that piece of anatomy tended to break when doing a gallows jig.

Even worse was that Arashi couldn't breathe. He scrabbled at the thick arm holding him up, even molded the last of his pre-formed chakra into wind chakra to slice up the offending appendage, but it was no good. His heart rate was increasing from a mixture of fear (he didn't want to die!), anger (this bastard was _so_ going down!), and the automatic response of the body to escape such situations, which involved more oxygen to the extremities to allow a struggle. Arashi didn't have very much oxygen left in his tiny body.

It is said that the enemy is no more dangerous than when cornered. Arashi was cornered, but he didn't consider himself dangerous. Not with the burning numbness that was already taking over his hands, the heavy taste in his mouth, the ringing pain in his body from lack of oxygen. He vision wasn't doing so hot either, as everything started to take on a red cast, and the _screaming_ –

Screaming?

Arashi hardly even noticed that he was dropped back to the ground. His opponent had no other choice as his entire forearm had been burned from his body by rather violent youkai. The fingers fell limp at Arashi's throat even as the man screamed in pain. The child tried to tamp down the Kyuubi's chakra with his own, but the attempted gathering of chakra only made _more_ of the Kyuubi chakra pump through his veins.

Arashi did not like it; he very much did not like it. But the more he resisted the chakra the more there was. He could feel his canines pressed against his lip and his fingernails pierced the soft flesh of his fisted hand. The air crackled with an energy that was obscenely familiar, yet not anything he had really felt before. Worse, the red feeling had completely replaced his nice blue-green, and even decided to take a jaunt into the visible spectrum.

It was about then that Arashi realized that he had no control over his limbs either. Well, he did, in fact he _was_ controlling them, but his body seemed to be running on the instinct of "kill the one who is trying to kill you" when he didn't particularly want it to. He also didn't particularly want to die though, so his body was quite keen on eradicating the threat before letting him think.

Let it never be said that the average chuunin is well versed in subduing jinchuuriki. For all Arashi knew, Iwagakure had some fledglings demon-containers (1) of their own, but this chuunin didn't stand much of a chance with his dominant forearm gone, whether Kyuubi's youkai had cauterized his wound or not.

It was fast, and it happened in a blur. By the time it was over, Arashi noticed that the dirt road was blackened in places, the irrigation canal was most certainly _not_ clear, and there was a scarp of an arm in front of him.

Another blurred moment as another threat came to be, but Arashi blacked out right about then.

* * *

Minato's first problem was being attacked head on by four chuunin. His second problem was that Kakashi and Arashi took two of those chuunin off his hands, though he suspected they would die within a minute. That rage pushed him on to counter and strike and do whatever he could to help keep his precious students alive. For all that he tried to treat Arashi as a potential threat, and for all that he didn't know what to do with Kakashi, they were his students, the future of Konoha, and as sappy as it sounded, they were much closer to him than he let on.

His third problem in the form of the third chuunin returning, though Kakashi could clearly be seen on the road, bleeding and breathing. There wasn't much time to process this before Minato was stopped in his tracks by a force that he had thought himself essentially immune to by this point: fear. Pure, unadulterated fear. There was a killing intent hanging in the air, not directed at him, but Minato didn't even have to turn as the chuunin blocking his view stumbled away.

Arashi was surrounded by a visible cloak of red chakra that crawled over his skin and licked the air like fire. The sole Namikaze had never seen anything like it, and he decided quite quickly that he didn't want to either; whatever that was, it couldn't be good. Sure, it was great that the total number of Iwanin decreased, but the way Arashi went about it was simply gruesome. It wasn't until one of the other three Iwanin – they had scattered themselves to get away, Minato noticed belatedly – threw a shuriken that Minato realized Arashi wasn't in control.

There was an obvious boost to his speed. Arashi had always been quick since he augmented his physical capabilities with chakra all the time, but he went from being fast-for-a-genin to too-fast-for-a-genin. He remember Arashi calling his chakra "blue-green" once, but the red chakra that lashed out and struck at the offending Iwanin couldn't possibly be Arashi's.

Minato tried to avoid the rose-tinted glasses that the Hokage sometimes preferred, but he wouldn't let himself believe that little Arashi was actually capable of such things. Especially not with his face so transformed.

Hadn't Arashi claimed he hated his eyes? They were different, true, the red lining changed to a more vicious shape and his eyes rotated so the slit went vertical. The irises were a dangerous shade of red, not the blue and yellow mix Minato was used to seeing on his student. And his cheek-scars were noticeably thicker.

It wasn't possible, but it was true.

Minato quickly disabled one of the fleeing Iwanin – Inoue Hachiro as a matter of fact – determined to eliminate his true opponents before rounding on his student. There was still perhaps a minute before the police force of the small town was near enough to make out the details of the fight.

One toad summoning later, and Minato had a still-living Iwanin captured and ready for interrogation.

Arashi had already ripped the last one to shreds.

Minato was stiff as he watched Arashi turn to him, leveling a completely animalistic gaze his way. It was _wrong_, that was the only way to put it. Arashi's eyes flicked to the unconscious captive that Minato was tying to the toad's back, but he didn't seem to care anymore. One grin – a predatory one perhaps – darkened Arashi's face before the red chakra collapsed suddenly. Araishi's eyes were wide, blue – _normal_ – before he crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut.

A stampede of hooves alerted Minato to the approach of the cavalry before he had even hopped off of the transport-toad.

They were all grateful that the threat to their village had been subdued and promised to send a proper payment to Konoha when a billing was sent. In addition, they helped Minato get the boys to the small hospital in the village – the home of a retired medic – though Minato insisted that he carry Arashi just in case. They probably thought it was because Arashi was actually related to him or something similar, but it was really for their own safety.

Only Minato was allowed to remain as the old medic worked, and only because he had gained a shallow but on his arm during the struggle. He insisted on staying after as his students were healed – a scan showed Arashi was completely uninjured save for some oxygen debt to his extremities while Kakashi had a concussion – and got yet another surprise.

How he had lived in the same apartment as Arashi for so long without seeing the boy's stomach was a wonder, especially in the summer. He could see why the boy might hide it though; an active seal the likes of which Minato had never even _dreamed_ was painted on his torso, designed to keep something in... but that was all Minato could figure out in his quick glance. That boy had a _lot_ of explaining to do... but it would wait until they were back in Konoha, safe, and with Inoue safely ensconced in the ANBU Interrogation HQ.

As soon as both boys were cleared by the medic, Minato took them outside to where a few policemen were guarding the toad. He thanked them and summoned another toad that he attached to with chakra. The boys were held around their waists under each arm, and despite the bumpy ride, they didn't wake again until after nightfall.

That was two days ago, and now Minato was ready to tear his hair out. The entire thing was _insane_!

It was supposed to be a simple mission; they would take down the "bandits" who had secured the town and head home. Then it became a "make sure the bandits really are bandits" mission. The bandits weren't bandits, the employer wasn't a civilian, or even a citizen of Hi no Kuni, and the intentions behind the job were less than good.

Because of their involvement in the mission, all of Team Bed Head (technically Team 11) were allowed to know the results of the interrogation that took place before they were allowed to meet with the Hokage. Inoue Hachiro had originally run away as a child and kept in touch with his family through letters and the very occasional visit after he reached adulthood. As it turned out, he had run away and been caught by a patrol unit in Tsuchi no Kuni and joined the Iwagakure shinobi forces.

After years in the Academy, a decade as a mediocre genin, and six years as a chuunin, he was finally up for promotion to jounin level at the age of twenty-nine. His graduation mission was to infiltrate Hi no Kuni and set up an outpost for Stone within the Fire's borders without letting on. Obviously, he decided to be an overachiever and try to make Konoha do the job for him.

Inoue moved to the farming village he had spent his childhood in with his wife and three sons – Keiichi, who was five, Keiji, recently three, and Saburo (named for his father's deceased third-oldest brother) – three months prior and took up work as a farmhand. Two and a half months later, he killed his wife and younger son before fleeing the village and coming to Konoha to ask for "help" against the garrison since he wasn't sure he could defeat so many swordsmen without being noticed.

The plan had been for the Konoha shinobi – that is, Minato, Arashi, and Kakashi – to take down the swordsmen without doing any research and leave before Inoue and his men got back to the village. Konoha received pay beforehand except for A-rank and S-rank missions, so the report of "mission complete" and a thank you note from Inoue after they had killed the civilians in the village would stop Konoha from snooping while Iwa started sending in troops to begin a war against Hi no Kuni while the entire country turned a blind eye.

With this information added to the scroll that contained the mission report, Minato herded his students into the Hokage's office to debrief the situation.

Kakashi's father had started the tensions between Iwa and Konoha a year before; it was almost fitting that Kakashi himself be sent on the mission that revealed a true war was brewing. Morbid, yes, but still fitting.

Minato hated himself for even thinking it.

* * *

Kakashi was the first to give his report, from information gathering to what happened up to his losing a fight. For some reason, he was then dismissed, but Arashi didn't bother thinking of why; he knew Minato had seen him being overtaken by the Kyuubi's chakra (and, in retrospect, it hadn't even been enough to equal a single tail), but had said _nothing_. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the information was being kept from Kakashi.

So when Minato gave his account and did not withhold the red chakra that swarmed around Arashi, it was really no big surprise. The look that the Hokage leveled at him caused Arashi to flinch, but he knew better than to try and escape. Or maybe he was too dense to think of it; the point was debatable.

He wasn't too happy to find out that Minato had seen his seal, and even less when Minato demanded that he remove his shirt, even though Arashi had made a point of not letting _anyone_ see his stomach. But he complied, wincing all the way as he pulled the shirt over his head, his hitai-ate almost slipping off with it only to fall through the neck-hole and thud on his bony, childish chest.

Minato was already leaning in front of him, examining the seal, and the Sandaime was looking on from his desk. Not for the first time, Arashi flt very small as he realized Minato had to _crouch_ to look at his seal. Arashi was, technically, sixteen years old now, so Minato wasn't too much older, and he had to _kneel_ just so that he could get any sort of good look at the markings.

"How long has this been here?" The Sandaime asked after a moment. Minato seemed to snapped out of his concentration, but Arashi wasn't really sure how to answer. The truth obviously, but what truth?

"My whole life," he stated finally. Better than saying since the Kyuubi attack or some other such thing. "It's always been there, and so has the red chakra. It's why I left my village." Also true. He left Konoha for Myobokuzan because it was necessary; the Kyuubi and Akatsuki made it necessary. Even leaving for the training mission had been because of Kyuubi.

Every shinobi learned the lesson that "ever lie contains a grain of truth." For Arashi, most of his lies were mostly truth with a grain of lie to make it less incriminating. If he didn't lie, he wasn't really in trouble.

"Do you know what this is?" Minato asked Arashi. The involuntary wince the crossed the time-travelers features obviously gave Minato his answer. "I've never seen half these symbols, and Jiraiya-sensei said I'm only a few years from gaining my seal mastery. What I _do_ recognize is for a containment seal, but other than that… this is gibberish."

Arashi had never had to tell anyone about Kyuubi. The adults of his Konoha had already known, as had all his foes. Sakura had seen him going Kyuubi and knew without him saying, and Sasuke had figured it out with that weird Sharingan-going-into-the-seal thing. And now he had to tell the Hokage and a man who _might_ be his father. Not telling wasn't an option; telling an outright lie and refusing to answer wasn't an option either. It just… felt wrong, and they could always do worse to find out.

He didn't like the idea of joining Inoue in the Interrogation rooms.

"It's to contain a demon," he didn't have to say what demon. "It was going to destroy the village and I had just been born; at least, that's what I was told. The village leader sacrificed himself with this seal to contain the demon in me. Sometimes I have to use its chakra." That "sometimes" increased from when he first tapped it to when he fell in the well be quite a lot, drawing more chakra each time more often.

Both the men were surprised; obviously the possibility hadn't really come to him, but they were soon firing off questions. What usually happened when he used the demon's chakra? Had he noticed any adverse affects? Had anyone else ever seen him use it? What did he remember while using it? How did he use it? When it happened, was the demon in control? Was it the source of his eyes? What village was he from? How did the demon force him to leave his village? The questions came fast and half of them Arashi couldn't answer for a variety of reasons.

Never before had he been happier as Kushina entered the room as though a seal hadn't been affixed to the doors to stop intruders and eavesdroppers. "Oh! Hey 'Rashi-chan!" She sounded perfectly chipper. "I was hoping I'd see you today! Namikaze-baka, you can handle the rest of your debriefing without him, right? Well, I doubt it, but..." she then grinned, grabbed Arashi's arm, and bolted.

He had truly never been more grateful to get away from the Hokage, not even the time he painted the Tower orange and green back in his Academy days.

They didn't halt until Kushina had brought him to her house – conveniently on the other side of the village from Team Bed Head's apartment – and ushered him inside. It was an organized chaos, as in all previous visits, and Arashi could only imagine _why_ she invited him over this time. A prank might not be a good idea when he was already in hot water with the Hokage and his sensei.

"What, no thank you?" Kushina huffed indignantly, hands on her hips. "I go to all the trouble of breaking you out of your mission debriefing that was apparently getting you in trouble – why aren't you wearing a shirt by the way? – and you can't even give me a simple thank you!" She wasn't really mad with him; it was more a theatrical sort of "woe is me" thing. "If I hadn't run into your teammate, I wouldn't have even known you were back in town, you know, and then I had to needle him until he told me you were in the office still, which of course wasn't a good sign."

Arashi couldn't hold back and buckled over in a fit of laughter. It was hilarious. For some reason... it was just hilarious. If he was right about who his parents were... just a bit, it was like what he'd always heard parents were like. One playing ally ninja, one playing bad ninja; Kushina always too Arashi's side, though that might be because she and Minato didn't get along well... yet.

"Oh, you think I'm funny do you?" Kushina huffed. "Well, tough ramen. I only brought you here because it was the first place I could think of, but we need to get you to your apartment to get cleaned up and clothed. As cool as that tattoo on your stomach is, you can't go bare-chested and half-covered in dirt to Kasumi's house. She invited us to dinner for when you got back to Konoha, and I'm not breaking my word to her. That's my shinobi code, and I'm not breaking _that_ either."

While Arashi was proud of his mother for having similar values to himself, he wasn't happy about going back to the apartment.

But luck was on his side, and he didn't see Minato until the weekend.

The not so lucky part of that was that it was so Minato could inform his miniature students that Konoha was preparing for war. As such young genin, they were both to stay in the village at all times and never head beyond the training grounds unaccompanied; instead of fighting in whatever battles may be coming up, their duty was to remain in the village and protect the civilians.

All the jounin had been put on a "war council" led by the Hokage and Orochimaru of the Densetsu no Sannin. The primary informant outside the village was Jiraiya of course, and Minato told them that it was his mission for the next few months to go and try to find Tsunade. Arashi clutched at his chest, missing the feeling of his necklace from that same old lady (who wasn't actually old anymore), but he did not protest. For now, the Hokage was trusting this little kid who might be a threat; he had to trust that his sensei would be safe, too.

"Uzumaki volunteered to take you two in until I'm back, and one of the newer jounin will be taking over your training for a while," Minato informed them sternly. "I know you're both way above your age level, but no slacking. You're protecting our home now, and you need to be in top form."

Arashi had never been through war. There had been the Oto-Suna invasion, but all he had to do was go after Gaara, and the Akatsuki had never attacked Konoha. The entire premise of war – of large groups killing other large groups and everything else involved in it – was not something that he liked to think about, but it seemed that would be his reality for some time; he didn't pay much attention in class, but the Yondaime became Hokage one and a half years before Naruto's birth, two months after the end of the war that was only now beginning. Arashi and Kakashi would be going on thirteen by then. Provided they all survived.

The revealing of his jinchuuriki status set the mood that Arashi expected; not good.

* * *

Living with Kushina was alright. She tried to be as happy-go-lucky as before, but seemed to have a hard time of it. At the very least she was pleased to have someone else in the house with her and tried to keep both of the children comfortable. Kakashi was always out, only around to sleep and eat. He was training of course, and patrolling, as if he thought that the limitations of his tiny body could be overcome so simply. It was more likely that he felt some sort of shame for his father's failure that he started the entire ordeal.

Arashi trained a lot too, but in different ways. He was adding some real training elements into his games with Anko and Asuma, and it was showing in their school work. Anko was set to graduate in March, and Asuma told Arashi (enthusiastically) that he was being considered for early graduation, which made Arashi feel guilty, but training was training. He also trained with Kushina when she wasn't teaching, and with his and Kakashi's replacement sensei, an Aburame who really only set them to tasks in the same manner that Kakashi himself always had to Team 7.

Only the civilians could have remained ignorant to the coming war, and even they can't have missed the shinobi being so frantic. Everyone was ready to grab a kunai and throw it out of sheer nerves. But the village continued working as if Iwa wasn't ready to break down the doors.

After three long months of waiting, the war officially broke out. It was almost a month into the new year, and Arashi's life didn't change much. He wished he knew some medical jutsu (not possible given his current level of chakra control) since he had a lot more chakra than the average medic. But he could only take his control so far, and he doubted anyone would teach a kid how to heal serious wounds anyway, genin or not.

Minato was still out, though the Sandaime was kind enough to inform Arashi and Kakashi that their sensei had met up with both Jiraiya and Tsunade and would be back by March, if the fates allowed. He didn't say much, but one comment he said gave Arashi a small hope for himself as well; Minato had been working on his fuuin jutsu training the entire trip.

Arashi kept training, kept getting as much in as he could. He wasn't going to let Konoha down; he was only one kid, but he had the Kyuubi no kitsune sealed in him, and he was going to figure out _something_ to get out of this mess.

And Arashi _never_ went back on his nindou.

**Author's Note: There has been a lot of confusion regarding Arashi's chakra, so I'll explain. He cannot mold chakra while in vigorous motion or when he body reaches a certain point of excitement. That is, he cannot **_**create**_** chakra. Remember all the way back in the Wave Arc when everyone collected chakra **_**then**_** used it to stick? Arashi can collect plenty of chakra before he reaches the point-of-no-molding and use the pre-molded chakra for techniques (this is just basic chakra, not yet formed for a certain jutsu). Trying to mold chakra when he can't for long enough will release Kyuubi chakra into his coils (as seen in scenes one and two). Hopefully that cleared things up for some of you (sometimes I'm not that great at explaining my ideas it would seem...).**

**Okay... so I've never written an action scene of any caliber. Hoping I didn't screw it up, but that's for you lot to decide. Obviously updated later than I thought I would, but I'm not apologizing this time. I realized that I have finals coming up and have been in a panic to make sure I haven't lost what needs to be returned at the end of the semester, etc. Next semester I have Writer's Workshop though. Yay!**

**My current goal is to finish this story by the end of the school year (mid-June; should be too hard since I'm breezing through large sections of time). Honestly, if I update once a week, it will be easy. (Especially since, as already stated, I have Writer's Workshop starting in two weeks.)**

**And yes, the jinchuuriki reveal HAD to happen now. No, Arashi is definitely NOT a Gary-Stu, and things will only get more complicated from here, I can tell you that. Sorry if this kinda failed; I'm trying to write something I've never tried before, so it's bound to be a little rocky.**

(1) I have no idea how old the Yonbi and Gobi containers were when they were killed, and Arashi wouldn't know them anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence (how did I forget to mention that?), short, feels almost filler-ish to the author... kinda rushed

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah. Beta'd (ish) by Corselli.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 7

Senju Tsunade knocked back a cup of sake as she often could be seen doing any given night of the week. Even through the slight alcohol haze, she eyed her companions, Jiraiya and his old apprentice, Minato. She had only left Konoha a few years back, two years after the renowned Hatake Sakumo had his first – and, as Minato had informed her, only – child. She remembered being midwife to that birth, and staying on at the hospital despite her Hemophobia until she just couldn't take all the reminders.

Not that this was the first time she had seen Jiraiya since then, but Minato had certainly grown up from the weedy fourteen year old she had last seen. In a couple more years he would be a real heart breaker if he wasn't already.

"So... you want me to help in the war effort," Tsunade picked up the warm sake jug and poured a bit more into her saucer as she eyed the bushy-haired pair of frog-summoners before her. "And you use my necklace as the draw? I'm wearing it you know, and no one else can. Jiraiya, you saw the results, and Minato, I'm sure you remember the reason why there is a medic on any team going on missions over C-rank?"

"Because of you, Tsunade-hime," Minato answered promptly. He was such a straight-laced boy. Tsunade knew that he tried, at least some of the time, to act like the teenager he was, but he was too stiff and it drove off his peers and colleagues, which just made him stiffer. "But, please, come back to the village. I know it's hardly been four years, but things are different now. I made jounin, and I think you should meet a member of my team, if nothing else."

"The sage-boy?" That was really all that Tsunade had caught from Jiraiya's explanation, that Minato was teaching the same Hatake brat she had delivered and a boy who was using a dumbed-down version of sage chakra at all times, not even knowing how to use it properly.

He claimed it was too dangerous to teach a child to use sage chakra properly, but already Tsunade disagreed... yet the war would only make things more difficult, even if battles were still sparse.

"Arashi is ... interesting, Oujo-sama (1)," Minato continued. "You'll understand if you meet him. And your skills, both in and out of combat, could mean the difference between victory and defeat. If nothing else, the knowledge of you back in Konoha would raise the spirits of shinobi on the field."

The facts were laid out in a formulaic manner, and Tsunade could find no fault but her lack of freedom in it. Yet... she had thus far found that confinement to the city of her birth and youth was far more fulfilling than this aimless wandering from gambling hot spot to lender to tourist trap. In the end, what more could she do but accept?

It was for this reason that the Slug Sannin found herself back in Konoha, not that she would admit it, in a meeting room with Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Minato, and the Sandaime. Orochimaru didn't look much different, though his hair might have grown some, and the Sandaime was only a bit more wizened than before; it was good to be home after her long and spontaneous absence, though Tsunade would never admit it.

"So, Jiraiya and the bean-pole," 'bean-pole' being Tsunade's new nickname for Minato since he had so much taller, "tell me there is a couple of prodigy in the village." This was when they divulged everything properly – Kazama Arashi's strange arrival in the village, how he refused to say where he learned techniques, yet they could not prosecute him because he was a child. He was the most normal prodigy they had seen, despite that he had been training for who knew how long to have his level of proficiency.

Even greater than that, Hiruzen revealed that Arashi was the container of a demon of some level, though it was not said what sort of beast this was, though they assumed it was not one of the tailed beasts. There were only four currently unsealed; the Sanbi, which just lazed around in the middle of a lake unless provoked, the Ichibi captured by Suna, the Niibi, which Jiraiya heard was soon to be sealed by Kumo, and the Kyuubi, which was not in their plain of existence and hadn't been for more than two hundred years. Tsunade could rattle off a list of lesser demons he might contain, but it didn't really help.

"Given my research around different chakra and demons, perhaps I should take the child off your hands Minato-kun?" Orochimaru's oily voice seeped through the room. Tsunade had never gotten along with her teammates, but she had to admit that Orochimaru, genius or not, was creepy.

"No, sealing is more important with him," Minato shook his head. "And Uzumaki would kill me if I lost the kid. Besides... he's part of my team, and I'm trying to get Kakashi to understand about that stuff still. I don't think 'Rashi would be too happy either..." Minato paused, his eyes averted from Orochimaru as was expected from any newly-eighteen, never mind his status of jounin putting them on equal footing. "And... he's grown on me." His voice was firmer there.

Tsunade didn't bother with smiling, though she wanted to. Minato had tried to not seem overly close to his more suspicious pupil, but from the proud way he spoke of both his students, it was pretty obvious that he liked them. Part of that may have been simply because they had to get along to live together, but Tsunade was of the mind that teacher and student should be friends, even with a twelve year age gap.

"Whatever, this isn't a conference about who's going to train the Sage gaki," Tsunade huffed. "I want to meet the kid later, the Hatake as well, but what I came to the village for was my necklace." She lifted the offending piece of jewelry with one finger. "Jiraiya said it looked older than mine."

For once, the undisputed genius of the Densetsu no Sannin looked confused, though he masked it expertly. Tsunade knew her teammates well, however, and the expression did not escape her notice.

Why hadn't they brought Orochimaru in on all these security breeches earlier? He was the head of Konoha's Security and Patrol Unit, and yet to keep him in the dark...

The appearance of the clone of her precious necklace snapped Tsunade out of her thoughts. She snatched it from the Hokage's hand and began comparing it to the one around her neck. The dimensions were exactly the same, they had the same materials, identical shape and structure, and the one in her hand was definitely a bit duller, a bit older, than the one around her neck.

What really got her was that the thong it was strung on was identical to the one around her neck, down to the last strand of chakra-enhanced thread. It was ever-so-slightly frayed, but other than that...

"They're identical," she stated finally. "So, tell me one more time where you found this, Jiraiya?"

* * *

_Arashi scowled at the tree he was hitting. It wasn't doing much good to hit it, in fact the damned thing didn't show any signs of being hit aside from some small flecks of blood. It was impossible to train his little body the way that anyone older could; children built up scar tissue faster and easier than adults, but Arashi never scarred, and his body was trying to use its energy to grow rather than fight. He couldn't direct that growth, nor could he speed it up, and in a few years' time he would have to retrain himself to fight with a bigger body..._

_Why did they let a five year old kid graduate? He didn't know, and as nice as it had seemed, Arashi was more frustrated than anything._

_Pumping chakra into his limbs was fairly easy. It made his blows a bit more solid, but he didn't have the control to really do anything with it, not like Tsunade and Sakura could. Still, one frustrated punch missed his tree completely and he released the chakra in his arm before he could accidentally catapult himself past his target._

_He was surprised to note a large cracking noise that was most certainly not his head meeting the tree that his hand had missed. He was doubly surprised to see the impact crater on the side of the tree... that he hadn't so much as grazed with his tiny childish fist. (2)_

_It was a breakthrough a year in coming, but Arashi took to it as a fish in water. Releasing the chakra from his fist as he came in contact with the tree, or just before, or even if he missed, that was the way to go. The buzzing in the air magnified to the point where he couldn't ignore it as he had taken to doing, but he didn't mind. He felt stronger, and he finally knew how to do something in this tiny body._

That had happened the first week of March – it was now the second. Anko was graduating from the Academy in a week, provided she could do the bunshin test, and Arashi could officially claim to have been in the past for a full year.

A year of fighting against his body's sudden limitations, trying (and failing) to socialize Kakashi, and wondering when he would be kicked out of the village on his ass for being a jinchuuriki. On the bright side, he knew who his mother was and had pretty much decided that only Minato could be his father, and he knew how to deal some damage properly.

But Minato was still away retrieving Tsunade, and Kushina had already praised him for being good at something. That feeling of being praised like that... well, he could understand why other kids had always been driven to do well in the Academy. There was something endlessly happy about it. He couldn't help but wonder if Minato congratulating him would have the same effect.

"Daisuke-sensei," for that was the name of Team Bedhead's temporary sensei, Aburame Daisuke, "we finished cleaning up the park." Just as every day since the war preparations started, he and Kakashi had been stuck on the lowest rung D-rank missions to keep the village running. It was boring.

"Hm," Daisuke was probably less vocal than even Shino had been, though it was understandable. Arashi had come to understand that "Hm" was a sort of "whatever" noise, "un" was affirmative (not that that took a lot of guesswork; the Aburame had no reason to speak formally to his students (3)), and silence... that could be "no", "no duh", or even "shut up, I'm talking to my bugs" for all Arashi knew. "Hm" also doubled as Daisuke's instruction for them to return to the Mission Room for pay.

Kakashi proceeded silently, as usual. Sometimes he glared at things, but generally he did his best to be an emotionless shinobi – the "ideal" by-the-book kind – and six months after the fact seemed to have forgotten he even had a father, except for the chakra blade he now carried in his back.

Arashi had kind of given him up as a lost cause by this point, much as he hated to admit it, though he still helped Kushina in trying to pry the six-year-old out of his shell.

It just... didn't seem worth it. Though that could have been Arashi's feeling of uselessness talking.

The journey back to the Mission Room was uneventful, and as soon as the Aburame had made his token appearance to the desk chuunin, he vanished to do who knew what. Whatever he did when he wasn't supervising their missions. Arashi and Kakashi collected their pay without incident and started out of the Tower.

Started being the operative word, as Arashi caught sight of vibrant yellow from the corner of his eye and caught hold of Kakashi's cuff. Turning on his heel, Arashi was more than pleased to see Minato exiting the Hokage's office at the top of the stairs. He was running, Kakashi in tow, before he had even processed who the entire group leaving the office happened to be.

"Minato-sensei!" If Minato hadn't seen his students before, he certainly did then, and he turned away from the figures he had been talking to.

Stopping his charge suddenly, Arashi couldn't keep from falling as Kakashi crashed into him. He was a bit too caught up in the company that Minato was keeping. The Hokage was no surprise, and the sight of Jiraiya alive and well made him happy, even if he had already "met" the toad sage months ago. Tsunade's appearance made him pleased as well, but she was kind of expected anyway. No, it was definitely the view of Orochimaru that made him stumble.

Thus far, Arashi had been pleased to note his ability to avoid meeting the serpentine member of the Sannin. Well, more like luck, but he hadn't seen the man and heard very little of him in general.

"Geez, 'Rashi-kun, did you get clumsy while I was away or something?" Minato was laughing at him, but Arashi was a bit busy fighting to not glare at Orochimaru. It was a losing battle, but he gave it a valiant effort. Minato, however, soon blocked his view of the man as he approached and pulled both of his apprentices to their feet. "If you've gotten sloppy, I'm going to wholeheartedly blame Uzumaki."

Rather than reply immediately, Arashi stuck his tongue out and tried to calm down from seeing Orochimaru. He'd _known_ the man was in Konoha, knew he was in charge of the war council, but _seeing_ him was rather sobering.

"No way, Sensei! I've gotten a lot better!" Arashi responded as he could to Minato's jab.

"Show me," Minato's order was succinct, but Arashi couldn't help but stare at him. "What? You think I'm kidding? I haven't seen you in months – show me." He'd already gone to Serious Mode – the small moment of Minato the Fun Sensei had vanished faster than usual. Whatever they had been talking about was serious.

"In the middle of the Tower?" Arashi was more concerned about showing Orochimaru what he could do, standing out to the man more than a six-year-old genin already would. He had heard from Jiraiya about the experiments, and he didn't want to be one.

"Hm? Oh, you don't have to worry about looking bad in front of them," Minato completely mistook his hesitation. "Show me."

With nothing else for it, Arashi put a little chakra (by his standards) into his right arm and punched his instructor. Unsurprisingly, Minato barely even had to move to dodge, and the disappointment was visible in his stance. That was when Arashi released the chakra. He could have done without, disappointed his teacher, and ended up looking like an idiot in front of the strongest shinobi in Konoha, but...

Well, Uzumaki Naruto had never been one to hide his strength, and that hadn't changed with his age and name.

The burst of chakra caught Minato by surprise, and he made a sort of squawking noise as the energy pressed into his side and knocked him off balance. With their audience momentarily forgotten, Arashi couldn't help but grin at his stunned teacher.

"Wha – well, I guess that's one way to attack," Minato nodded seriously to time-traveler. "'Kashi-kun, 'Rashi-kun, we'll have some formal training tomorrow. I'm heading out for a mission in a week, but I can deal with you two 'til then. Just, uh, do whatever it is you were going to do for the afternoon; I still have things to go over with Hokage-sama."

Kakashi was already leaving, his quiet feet tapping against the hard floor of the hallway. Arashi spared one last glance to Tsunade, Jiraiya, and the Hokage – with a glare to Orochimaru – before darting off.

Hours later, Arashi was seated to a nice dinner of ramen with Kushina and Kakashi, happy to slurp up the noodles created by the gods.

"'Kashi-kun, 'Rashi-kun, Uzumaki-san," It wasn't completely unexpected to hear Minato's voice from behind them, but Arashi noticed that Kushina still jumped in her seat. "Mind if I join you?"

He didn't actually wait for any sort of affirmation before sitting and ordering his noodles. Conversation picked back up, though it wasn't really much. Arashi was a bit distracted because Minato kept looking over at Kushina and the genin.

"What do you want Namikaze-baka?" Huffed Kushina with an annoyed tone.

"Nothing," Minato shrugged, returning his gaze to the bowl of noodles before him. "Just noticed your hair's a couple inches longer since I left. Looks nice."

Arashi couldn't help but wonder at why, despite the scowl on her face, Kushina looked rather... pleased.

* * *

Despite not working with Kakashi in training for months, Arashi had the same difficulty against the other boy that he always had. Kakashi was an honest-to-goodness genius, and while he didn't have the Sharingan, he was still able to pick up on Arashi's taijutsu easily. Of course, they were both taught the same style by Minato, but Kakashi was quite simply better at it.

Arashi was quite proud to have leveled the playing field with his chakra-burst punches.

Not that Minato was letting up on them or anything. In fact, all through out their first spar Minato was commenting on how they obviously hadn't been sparring against people much, let alone one another, and he kept pointing out openings in their form. There wasn't much to say on Arashi's new skill, since his chakra was reacting that way of its own volition once released and seemed to have no trouble hitting anyone within a foot of where his fist was.

"Try it with your feet, too!" Minato called from the sidelines. "I know you've learned enough chakra exercises for that, Kazama!"

And then there was _that_. As of that morning, Kakashi and Arashi were Hatake and Kazama in training. Minato said it was to keep the environment formal, so that they wouldn't let down their guard just because they were among friends, but Arashi had this niggling idea that this was not the case.

But Arashi still took the advice as he kicked out at Kakashi's feet. When his silver-haired teammate jumped, Arashi released the chakra and it leaped up to Kakashi's feet and knocked him over completely.

"Yeah!" Arashi punched the air with a grin. "I beat you, Kakashi!" It was a rare feat considering Kakashi's taijutsu skill. Minato only allowed taijutsu spars between the two – he claimed that he wouldn't teach them many jutsu until they were older – and it wasn't like Arashi could get away with using any of his signature jutsu other than kage bunshin anyway. After all, what if Minato had already started working on the Rasengan? Surely he'd recognize it if that were the case.

"Good job both of you; I can see the results of your speed training Hatake. Kazama, it's not just that new tactic of yours that gave you an edge," Arashi couldn't keep a grin off his face at Minato's praise. "Tomorrow I'm bringing in an older genin for you to work with for the day. His teammates have all moved up to chuunin already, and I thought you could see what someone else in your ranking can do."

Something in that statement rang alarm bells in Arashi's head, but he nodded enthusiastically despite it.

The next day, he and Kakashi built up a slight sweat, but they took down their opponent quickly. He was more than twice their age, being fourteen years old, and had three years of genin experience under his belt. Maeda Kentaro was built for power, and it was because of that that the small bodies of Kakashi and Arashi could so easily manipulate him, especially when there were three physical children, one of which Kentaro thought was a regular illusory clone.

It took two six year old boys roughly a minute to take down their contemporary, and combined they only used two jutsu – one kage bunshin and one simple replacement – which made the older boy rather sour towards them.

"Kentaro, you need to stop holding so much confidence in your fist," Kentaro's instructor, a kunoichi by the name of Aiko, informed him. "You're a shinobi; look underneath the underneath for once, will you? These boys wouldn't have graduated so young if they weren't good. I expect you to do better in the chuunin exam."

"Yes Aiko-sensei," Kentaro grimaced.

Arashi was a bit more concerned with the mention of a chuunin exam. He hadn't been in one since he was 12, and he'd been a genin for more than four years now, technically speaking. He was kind of jealous that Kentaro would be participating.

"Kazama, Hatake, you worked well together, but you only have a week; I expect you to learn to work with Kentaro-kun for the exams," Minato's words washed over Arashi, and if he'd been drinking something he would have started choking or done a spit-take.

Were they insane?! Letting two six-year-olds into an exam... it was homicide waiting to happen. Not that other exams weren't just that this was probably the dumbest idea ever. Yet having been restricted to the village since the mission for Inoue that went wrong, the mere _concept_ of real combat sent adrenaline coursing through Arashi's system. Probably not the best thing given that disallowed chakra formation, but he couldn't help but feel giddy even when he kind of wanted to hit his sensei over the head.

* * *

Orochimaru of the Densetsu no Sannin, holder of the Snake Summoning Contract (and, coincidentally, the only living snake summoner), was roosted on top of the Academy building. A light genjustu covered his slinking as he walking slowly along the front, his eyes intent on two small figures who were walking with one larger figure. Most particularly, he watched the yellow-haired youth. There was something about that child. Part of it was his power – after all, he contained a demon, and with its power had _slaughtered_ multiple Iwanin. Another bit was his appearance, and the yellow that had seeped into his eyes whenever he gathered chakra, which was often.

Orochimaru had been watching this child for just over a week, usually with mud clones, and he had learned surprisingly little that was out of the ordinary. He was rambunctious like any untrained child his age, played with his age mates (very strange for a prodigy), and aside from the way he molded chakra, he was seemingly normal.

Except that he was a genin at age six. Except that he noticed things no child his age would notice. Except that he didn't shrink at the sight of blood or go crying for someone older to help when something went awry. Except that he seemed old for his age.

Except that he had drawn the attention of all the Sannin, the current Hokage, and just about everyone he'd met so far.

"Spying on little kids, Orochimaru?" He didn't bother turning around; he'd felt Tsunade's presence long before she got to the roof, and he knew her chakra signature so well that he could feel the slightest fluctuation as she prepared to speak. "That's just a little creepy, you know."

"You're doing it too," he wasn't the least bit ashamed of his actions, and his yellow eyes didn't leave the children on the ground. Maybe when he had perfected his body transfer technique... but that was still in its experimental stages, and none of the subjects had lasted more than a week in a foreign body just yet. But he kept up the conversation. "Interesting, isn't he?"

"Of course," Tsunade's scoff didn't faze him. "The first thing he does when we see him is knock over a jounin without much strain. And without using his demon's power. And... my necklace hummed when he gathered his chakra. The other more than the one I was wearing."

And wasn't _that_ interesting? The necklace of the Shodai Hokage, famed for being able to tame even the bijuu, had resonated with the child's chakra.

"Do you think the spare is his?" It wasn't much of a question. It was so unlikely, but so was everything else about the child that it might be no surprise if it really were the case. "I convinced Mitarashi-san showed me the shreds of the child's pants from when he arrived in Konoha, and the material and shade as the jacket. He could very well have been wearing it before entering the city."

"Hiruzen-sensei mentioned that as well," Tsunade now stood at his side, watching the blond try to instigate some sort of playful combat with one of his teammates and fail. Her fingers rubbed the bridge of her nose. "But we can't interrogate a child the same way we do an enemy ninja. Either we have to wait until he's old enough to handle it or he tells on his own; you know the Council would allow nothing else, or Sensei's morals for that matter."

"So we wait," Orochimaru shrugged. The three children entered the building and he slowly turned to his old teammate. "I'll try to talk to Minato about tutoring the child again. Even if his students make it to the third stage, dwarfed as it will be, he can't train them both for it." With the war on, Konoha was doing Konoha-only chuunin exams with the Hokage, Orochimaru, and a few jounin to judge who would move up in the ranks.

The very idea of promoting two children so young was so ridiculous that none of the panel would really consider it unless the children impressed them that much.

Orochimaru didn't bother saying good-bye to Tsunade before he left.

**Author's Note: My most extreme apologies for making you guys wait so long. I feel like a total ass. But... I dunno. For a month and a half (and then some) my brain mutinied against the mere thought of chapter 7. And then making it short... blech. I honestly feel like a horrible person. Obviously, the speed of the story is going to go up – with the chuunin exams next chapter, from there it's going to gloss over a lot for the next several years. Er... probably. Still not one-hundred percent on how it all deals out...**

**Anyway, still keeping this as no pairing, and when it's done I've plotted out a short sequel that will hopefully wrap things up. I want to be done with Imminence by the end of the school year (wah! Junior year only has a quarter left!), but it might go a bit into the summer depending on social/familial obligations and my intention of getting a job.**

**Oh, I've also written a couple of Naruto one-shots if you're interested. In The Jounin Lounge is just a funny moment with some OoC Kakashi and Gai, and Beauty and the Beast is a Gai/Fem!Kakashi (it actually works, and it's kinda cute). Other than that... nothing.**

**By the way, if you ever want a progress update, look on my profile. It's the second section.**

(1) Oujo-sama means "lady", referring to a girl/woman of high station/birth. Hime, of course, is princess, but I felt Oujo-sama was more fitting.

(2) In recent chapters, Naruto has "missed" Pein with a punch, and his chakra leaps out to hit Pein anyway. I don't know how exactly it works, so I made up my own sort of theory.

(3) In Japanese, "un" is informal affirmative and "uun" is informal negative. (In the manga, Deidara ends most sentences with "un")


	8. Chapter 8

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah. Beta read by Corselli.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 8

"But Kentaro, we totally kicked your ass in sparring!" Arashi pouted. "That means you _can't_ be the team captain!"

It hadn't taken the whole week for Arashi to decide that Kentaro wasn't the kind of person he much liked. Standing at over one-hundred and fifty centimeters tall, he was exactly the sort of person that the "midget taijutsu" (as Kushina had dubbed it) was designed to beat. His dark eyes were constantly looking down on his temporary teammates, in more ways than one, and he was more anal about keeping his black hair "perfectly coiffed" than even Sakura and Ino had been! He was the opposite of his temporary team in just about all ways.

In general, Arashi didn't much like Kentaro because he was arrogant. He wasn't mean, for the most part, just so self-assured that Arashi was _certain_ the older boy would die on a mission, and Kentaro couldn't stand to be criticized at all.

"I'm older, taller, stronger, _and_ more experienced than both of you; of course I'm the captain, Kowai-no-me (1)," Kentaro stuck out his tongue mockingly. "And it's 'senpai' or 'shishou' (2) to you."

"You're hardly master of anything, Maeda-senpai," Kakashi quipped. Arashi grinned and pounced on his sort-of age mate, but was shoved off with little effort. He pouted, but they continued their journey.

"I still say we should put it up to a vote or something," Arashi grumbled pathetically. He would do nearly anything to keep the light air that they had maintained during the long walk from Training Ground 17 to the relative center of Konoha, where the Academy building waited, even making a fool of himself.

He got a swat upside the head for his comment, and Kakashi voted Kentaro as their leader if only to make them shut up. Arashi pouted.

It was the big day, the opening of the chuunin exam. Of course, Kushina had informed them that there were extra precautions to prevent undue deaths, considering the war, and that it was exclusively a Konoha affair. While other nations who were slowly involving themselves in the war were advancing genin with little thought, the Hokage still wanted to go by the traditions on this one; they had worked since the last war after all. Even if Minato hadn't left on a mission the night before, he probably wouldn't have thought to mention it.

They didn't even pause in the threshold of the Academy building, instead following directly behind the team before them, who walked only ten paces ahead. Arashi gauged them as being about the same age as he _should_ be.

It didn't take long to reach the room they were told to find, the same one that had been Arashi's class for all of an hour one year ago. There was no surprise "false test" like the genjutsu on the second floor from Arashi's only other such experience, nor was there a boy in green intent on challenging the team's genius.

There wasn't quite the same volume of teams that Arashi remembered either. Somewhere between sixty and eighty other genin were milling about the room, nervous or bored or any other emotion, but not as high strung as Arashi's first test had been. No one glaring, no one glomping (for there was no other way to describe Ino's actions to Sasuke), and no speculative Kabuto waiting to trick the innocent rookies.

It took a moment for Arashi to realize that, with the graduation of Anko's class that month, he and Kakashi weren't technically rookies going into this, though their missions record (probably not even Kyuubi knew how many D-ranks, and only 3 C-rank) wasn't exactly impressive.

They waited around for another ten minutes before three jounin and all the chuunin instructors – including Kushina, much to Arashi's pleasure – filed in through the side door. Nothing flashy like Ibiki's smoke or Anko's broken-window and giant-curtain combo, but it shut up the genin who dared speak fast enough. Arashi only recognized one of the three jounin, Mitarashi Kiyoshi, but the parent of his friend didn't even spare him a glance. Probably a good idea, since the exam was _supposed_ to be impartial.

"Each team is to find a chuunin teacher to take them to the first part of the exam," one of the jounin spoke up. "From there, your team will receive instructions as to the first test. You will have one hour before the start of the second test, the location of which your team will be told _if_ you succeed."

"Starting from youngest to the oldest teams participating, please find your instructor," Kiyoshi spoke. The third jounin, a kunoichi, hadn't spoken, but she leaked enough killing intent to get the genin into gear.

Arashi made sure that his team did _not_ end up with Kushina, simply because he didn't want her to go easy on them or have her accused of favoritism. Since he and Kakashi were youngest in the room – by a good five years at least – they had first pick, so it wasn't difficult to do.

Nothing actually felt wrong until they were walking through the halls. Not that what happened was bad, just not expected. Arashi saw Kushina seated behind the teacher's desk in a classroom, grading papers. Judging by the take-out breakfast she was halfway through eating, she had been there for a while.

Which meant that they hadn't seen the real Kushina in the other classroom.

"Hey, get back here!" But Arashi didn't listen to the chuunin and instead entered the room that contained his unknowing mother.

"Kushi-nee-chan, aren't you supposed to be overseeing the first part of the exam?" Arashi didn't really have to try at his impression of a precocious kid... come to think of it, he rarely had to "act" like a kid since he liked it so much. And, really, he was always curious. But that was beside the point.

"Uh, yes..." the red-head – Arashi hadn't really noticed, but Minato had definitely pointed out that her hair was shaggy, and she hadn't cut it either – answered after a moment. "Tetsu-san, I wasn't figuring they would figure it out so soon. Did you purposefully lead them by my room or something?"

"No, I don't know where everyone is stationed," the chuunin poofed in a bit of smoke and revealed someone else – another male chuunin who didn't look overly dissimilar from his henge. "Have fun with your brats though, by all means."

Arashi twitched.

"Right. Let me explain," Kushina scratched the back of her head in a way that Arashi had done many times. She got up from her desk and pushed her breakfast across the wooden surface to the opposite corner so she could sit on the side nearest the genin. The other chuunin – Tetsu – simply left them.

"First of all, congratulations on passing the first part of the first part of your chuunin exam," Kushina began. "Yeah, you still have the real test, this first part was just to test your skills of observation; if you can look 'underneath the underneath,' then you can take the proper test. All of you take a seat while I find your examiner."

"Wait, you mean you aren't the one testing us?" Kentaro asked before Arashi could do more than open his mouth in protest.

"Er, well, I'm supposed to be," she grinned somewhat sheepishly, "but since I know 'Rashi-chan and 'Kashi-kun," Kakashi wouldn't let her call him "-chan" under any circumstances, "and they kinda live with me when Namikaze-baka is on missions… not exactly an unbiased test. So I'm going to switch with another chuunin. You three just hang out here and, uh, bond or something." Kushina scampered out without so much as a "good luck."

It was silent enough that Arashi could have _sworn_ he could hear crickets coming from Kushina's desk.

Knowing her – and the prank they had played on Minato yesterday, which _just so happened_ to involve crickets – there was a box of them waiting to be fed to the class pets.

Time ticked idly by, and while Kakashi seemed perfectly content to sit in a seat and stare at a wall, Arashi and Kentaro were both a more antsy sort. Arashi was sorely tempted to set up a prank, while Kentaro was doing calisthenics, trying to get ready for some sort of combat test.

Finally, after what seemed like hours (it had really been five minutes at the most), something happened. Nothing grand, but it was something. The light turned out, and Arashi took only a moment to adjust to the light, the rods of his optical sense kicking in to catch the subtle nuances of light that bounced around the room, little as there was. It was one of very few perks that came off of his eyes; the pupils were quick to change their size. That was about it though.

Well, and scaring small children, but Arashi wasn't the sort to enjoy that much.

But Arashi wasn't much concerned with his eyes when a pair of arms snaked around his torso and threw him at the wall. He could only react enough to brace himself before he hit... and stuck.

Something around his midriff was stuck to the wall, gripping strongly and _spreading_. It wasn't anything more than dark to his eyes, but his searching hands were able to identify the material quite quickly. And he swore.

"It's tree bark!" He could see another dark form stuck against the wall opposite, far too large to be Kakashi. In fact, Kakashi was still in the same general area he had been in before, only crouched under his desk with a kunai, looking out for their attacker.

But there was no fourth figure in the room that Arashi could see; they were alone, and the bark was spreading.

"The task is simple," the voice came from the PA over the side door to the class room. "Two of you are trapped, and one of your number is free. There is time to save only one life; the other is forfeit. Choose the one who will be of most use to you in the coming tasks, or else you will be disqualified. All shinobi must leave someone behind – now choose."

Arashi realized too late that he hadn't removed his hands from the tree that was slowly growing on him – it was too strong to just be bark – and now they were stuck to his midriff while the bark already had made its way halfway up to his chest, down past his crotch, and past his wrists as well. The voice hadn't lied; there was only time to save one of them, and while _he_ could have made a kage bunshin to rescue both, Kakashi didn't have the chakra reserves for it yet.

"Oi! Kakashi! Save the team leader, okay?" He called out in the darkened room. Kakashi deserved to have a fighting chance at becoming chuunin, and what was one more year, or six months even, to Naruto? When teamwork failed, the shinobi handbook was the only option left.

Kentaro was stronger and more experienced. He had taken the exams of this time once before, so he had a better idea of what to expect... in the end, Arashi felt that Kakashi's choice was obvious, much as he hated to admit it.

When the tree had reached his shoulder, upper arms, and knees, he could see Kakashi at the far wall, ripped away at the material binding the older boy.

That was also when he heard Kakashi call out to him.

"Use your chakra bursts," it was said low and calm, but Arashi could only grin. Yes, he _could_ use chakra bursts. The tree was wrapping around his neck now, down about his calves and closing the distance between the bits climbing his arms and torso. He had his chakra already molded, and the air hummed as he focused it around his hands before releasing it.

It occurred to him that the snapping and crackling wasn't much like the sound that the practice stumps or really any tree had made in response to the bursts thus far. But he had shattered the wood just as it would have grown over his mouth and nose; while he doubted that the examiners would have let him die, he was glad to be in working order all the same.

Kentaro had been freed a moment later, and the shutters covering the windows lifted, and the light switch was turned back up. A certain red-haired kunoichi by the name of Uzumaki Kushina strode calmly in through the door and smiled genially at the three annoyed genin. Well, two annoyed genin anyway; Arashi was a bit more concerned as to why he had a big chunk of chocolate on his shoulder, and why he was standing on more.

It only took a moment to spot the small seal stuck to his stomach, where the tree bark – apparently chocolate – had been growing from. This was further verified when he saw a seal on the wall with more chocolate around it.

Kushina waited until they were all facing her again before speaking. "So, how did you boys like your test?" She had a completely self-satisfied look on her face.

"Chocolate?" Kakashi deadpanned. "You were killing them with _chocolate_?"

"Shouldn't this be a bit more... y'know, serious?" Kentaro asked. He was nibbling on some chocolate that had chipped off of his hand; Arashi did the same. It was good chocolate after all.

"Well, it was serious," Kushina shrugged. "It might have been poisoned or actual tree bark. You think it wasn't, but you thought it was and now you know you were safe. Of course, at the time there was also a genjutsu placed on the wall ornaments," she gestured airily to Arashi and Kentaro, "so they couldn't think entirely rationally. The test was to see if a randomly selected member of your team would be able to make a split-second decision and be able to rightfully trust one of you to fend it off on your own. Obviously, 'Kashi-kun trusts you 'Rashi-chan, and because of that, you three pass your test."

"_Chocolate_?" Kakashi repeated, his voice less deadpan now.

"Mhmm, it was my idea."

"And a good one at that," Arashi grinned as he nibbled at so of the chocolate that had crept into a pocket. No need to get all sticky after all.

"Thanks. Now, I'll explain the second test and give you directions to the meeting point..."

* * *

"Results are in!" The lounge where all off-duty shinobi were waiting was lively, and even Orochimaru seemed less ornery than usual, though he was standing off in a corner, likely plotting. Two of the Sannin were present, their female compatriot working at the hospital since she decided to make herself useful for the duration of her stay.

Minato had returned from his mission – which was supposed to take a week – with mixed spirits. His mission turned into an extremely easy assassination. Donning his old ANBU uniform that he had worn only a few times since taking on his apprentices, he was supposed to kill a spy who was passing information from the Daimyo's own court to Iwa, and he had managed to come across the man in transit. It was a despairingly short mission that gave him time to be in town for the very start of the chuunin exam. To Minato, this wasn't just another chuunin exam though; this was a chuunin exam where _his_ students were participating.

The Hokage had assured him that they were only being included so that more teams could progress to the second and third stages, but Minato was still nervous... and a bit insulted. He sometimes felt that Kakashi had the mindset for chuunin, and Arashi certainly had _more_ than enough power, even if there were still a lot of kinks in his technique, and the occasional tactic that even Minato hadn't anticipated.

He continually wondered if they would pass, but Minato kept to joking around with Jiraiya rather than showing his worry. There was no showing his nerves to everyone present, because of all the jounin, he was the youngest. He was younger than most of the chuunin as well. If his team didn't pass the first exam... it would be rather embarrassing, even if they were the youngest to take the exam since its inception.

"The teams that got through the screening process are all teams but Team Twelve!" The messenger chuunin announced to the room. There was an embarrassed groan from one of the older jounin, obviously Team Twelve's instructor, but everyone else waited to hear which teams got through the first exams. "The teams the received a passing grade on the first exam are Teams Thirteen, Seven, Nine, Four, Twenty-Eight, Sixteen, Thirty, Twenty-Two, Nineteen, Thirty-Six, Forty-One, and..." he trailed off as the room was overcome by cheers of jounin and chuunin who had won bets, and the disappointed groans of the losers.

Minato was more concerned with why his team hadn't been listed yet.

"Ah, shut up you lot! Team Minato passed as well," the chuunin yelled into the room. Minato grinned and leaned back on the sofa, pleased with his work on the two little boys that their team would be one of so few that made it through the first exam. Of course, only half of the genin teams had even entered, but Team Bedhead (even Minato couldn't call it Team Minato; the name had stuck) was obviously up to snuff.

"Congratulations on your brats," Jiraiya snickered, a saucer of sake being slowly drained into his gullet. "But the second exam... it isn't a cakewalk, you know? I'll cross my fingers for them if you like."

With a scowl, Minato addressed his old teacher, "Jiraiya, I trained them for more than six months before I went to find Tsunade, and I'm pretty damn sure they'll at least put up a good fight. The new kid isn't half bad either, when he isn't posturing."

"I'll put a thousand ryou on it," stated the elder toad summoner. "That they won't make it through the second exam. Sound fair?"

Minato calculated the idea quickly and smirked. "How about I put down five thousand, and if I win you have to arrange with the toads to train Arashi in how to use his chakra? That's all that's holding him back right now, aside from his size, and if I lose... well, it's another five thousand ryou in your sake fund."

Jiraiya never could resist a good bet.

"Fine," he grumbled, knowing when he'd been one-upped, but not feeling all that bad about it. "See you in three days when the results come in."

And with that, Jiraiya left with most of the other shinobi, his empty sake jug and saucer left on one of the many coffee tables. The single saucer that Minato had filled up still sat untouched. Hoping beyond hope that his students would make it to the finals, he took it and necked the saucer.

With the not-quite-unpleasant burn in his throat and a nasty taste on his tongue, Minato left behind the last stragglers.

* * *

Arashi bounced nervously on his heels, a light pack on his back rustling unpleasantly. The second exam was highly straightforward, probably easier than _his_ second exam, and a lot safer, but it still had its dangers.

Kushina had explained that the second exam would be a test of their information gathering abilities, survival skills, how well they could follow directions – both navigational and not – and generally a lot of things that would be required of any shinobi involved in the war. When they arrived in the appropriate forest, each were given a backpack filled with basic survival gear they would bring on any mission, and sent off to figure out where they needed to go to get their first "point."

There was one big rule that the instructors hadn't given, but it was pretty obvious. They hadn't said that teams weren't allowed to fight one another to take information from the others. Like the scroll test, if someone else stole one of their information scrolls, then they would have to figure out how to get another.

In three days, they would have to return to their starting point – theirs, not any other team's – with twelve different scrolls that would tell them the location of the third exam. That exam, Kushina had revealed, would take place in a month, and it would be combat trials, but only genin who passed the test and the examiners for the final stage would be allowed to know the location for that exam.

"Got it," Kentaro leaned back on his heels and stowed the map back in his pack. For all his posturing, he was a decent navigator. Arashi had never really had any need for the skill – he knew Konoha like the back of his hand, and Jiraiya had always led him around in their travels – but when given coordinates, Kakashi's understanding was still only rudimentary, and Kentaro at least knew what they meant. "We'll head North-by-Northeast for three kilometers and then go East for about another after that. From there we can do a grid search to find our first," he paused, coughing to cover the puberty-induced cracking of his voice, "first scroll. Assuming the next location is revealed from there, we should be able to get five scrolls before nightfall."

"Lead the way, Maeda-taichou (3)," Kakashi said quietly. It was strange to hear him call anyone that, but, Arashi realized, it was getting less strange to hear him speak nowadays. It had been more than half a year since Hatake Sakumo died; maybe Kakashi was getting better?

Kentaro set them on a frustratingly slow pace, even as his head swelled from the new title. They kept to the ground which, while safer than jumping through the trees, made them more likely to be seen, and they were _walking_, which felt obscenely slow.

"Kentarooooo," Arashi groaned. "Pick up the pace! This is _boring_."

"Quit your yapping Small-Fry!" But they did speed up, just a little. "If we run we'll run out of stamina and we won't be able to get any further. We have to pace ourselves."

"What if there are only a few scrolls at the checkpoint though? Then we won't get _any_ scroll and we'll fail the exam." Arashi wasn't entirely sure they could pass, but he wanted to get to the Finals. He might not be physically stronger than his last exam, but he knew more, had more experience, and he didn't want to not get as far as before in an easier exam.

At their pace, it took an hour to get to their first checkpoint. Another group was already there – collecting their second scroll from the chuunin-in-charge – and Arashi was annoyed. They took so long because Kentaro continued to underestimate him and Kakashi. Sure, Kakashi didn't have the same stamina as an adult ninja (or Arashi), but they would still be able to run and hit maybe three checkpoints before they had to walk again.

With their first scroll in Kentaro's pack, they received directions to their next checkpoint – Kentaro took five minutes to figure out what their bearing was – and headed out. The next station took them half an hour to reach, and so it continued for the next three stations that they managed to reach before nightfall.

Arashi slept fitfully, which was strange considering he had been notorious for being able to sleep _anywhere_ and through _anything_ back in the future, but some strange feeling that he shouldn't sleeping. Still, he made himself sleep.

Come morning, he would regret that.

Kentaro had opened his pack to get out some of the rations the chuunin had packed for them. Arashi had sent clones to get some _real_ food – fish from the nearby stream and collecting edible plants – while Kakashi revived the previous night's fire.

"Shit!" That shout, naturally, came from Kentaro, who dropped his pack on the ground, scattering all that lay within. The scrolls were not included in this. "Someone must have snuck up on us... tonight we'll set up a watch rotation so we don't get caught out again. Give me ten minutes to figure out how we can get our old scrolls from the stations, okay?"

Arashi sat back his haunches and observed, worrying his lip. It had taken them from noon to nightfall to get those scrolls. Judging by the sun, it was already midmorning, and if they were going to pass, they had to get the same number of scrolls as yesterday in addition to getting back what had been stolen.

In a split moment decision, he brought his hands up into a seal and summoned up fifteen of shadow clones. They got into cells of three and darted off to where Arashi _knew_ the checkpoints had been.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kentaro snapped. "That's got to be a huge drain on your chakra, and if you think I'm going to _carry_ you to the checkpoints -"

"I have a lot of stamina," Arashi grumbled, but it was drowned out by Kentaro's ranting.

Any positive thoughts that Arashi _might_ have had towards their pseudo-leader vanished as Kentaro proved once more that he found his temporary teammates unworthy of his "greatness". After all, they were _six_ and he was _fourteen_; of course they must be inferior. That attitude made Arashi quite determined to pass the chuunin exam. Before he wanted to pass the second part of the exam; now he actually wanted to make chuunin.

Given his thoughts only a week ago regarding the idiocy of his teacher for even _thinking_ of entering him and Kakashi at such a young age... well, he cold appreciate the irony. Being a shinobi had taught him that much.

Arashi did manage to convince Kentaro that they should just continue on their way to the next checkpoint, however, and it was just as they were retrieving their scroll that his kage bunshin all "poofed". First one group, which brought unfortunate news, then the rest as that news was relayed to them as well.

"We can't go to the checkpoints to get our old scrolls again," Arashi revealed as they started heading for the next checkpoint. "We'll have to ambush another team to get them."

"And how do you know that?" Kentaro grumbled. He was fine leading a couple of kids through the woods, but as soon as they started trying to be equal, he would get grumpy. Arashi probably should have known that from the week of training together, but he had been more hung up on the general arrogance that reminded him of Kiba from his genin days in an unpleasant way.

"When a kage bunshin is killed, I learn everything that happened while it was alive," Arashi shrugged. Even though he hadn't learned that until Kakashi (his sensei) told him – and why the hell hadn't _Jiraiya_ on their big training mission? - it felt so entirely natural that he had no issues feeling superior from that knowledge.

"Then we'll just have to find someone to ambush," Kentaro stated blandly.

They continued on their way.

* * *

It was the last night. They had three minutes until the sun would be below the horizon, or so Kakashi postulated, and were expected to be at their starting point noontime tomorrow. Most teams were already finished collecting scrolls, and as Arashi's clones had gathered, most of those teams were camping out within ten meters of their starting point so as to not have to go very far when it came time to leave.

Having collected their remaining scrolls by that morning, Team Bedhead (plus Kentaro, as Arashi couldn't consider _him_ a member of the team) had been planning their ambush all throughout the day. They had picked out three targets, the easiest three they could find as far as they could figure, and the plan was pretty simple. Sneak in, steal the scrolls, sneak out. Basically the same thing as was done to them. But, should that plan fail, they would face the other team in combat if they believed they had a good chance of victory. If not, they would run away and try the next team on their list.

The first raid didn't work out so well, as one of the boys – he had to be the same age as Minato and Kushina – was a light sleeper and woke up his comrades as soon as Kentaro, Arashi, and Kakashi entered their little clearing. Kentaro called the retreat, not wanting to deal with guys bigger than him most likely, and they moved on to the second target. Kentaro got a kick in the face before he could call the retreat, but he did anyway.

It frustrated Arashi to no end.

"Kentaro-senpai," Kakashi had quit with using "taichou" after their scrolls were stolen, "this next team will have to be it, you realize. Soon it will be too dark to fight." They could fight during daylight as well, but procrastination was not something shinobi practiced.

"Yeah, I know," Kentaro grumbled. "Alright, Hatake, you and I will wait in the trees over their camp. Kowai-no-me, you're going to make some of your stupid clones and try for the scrolls, got it?"

"Wait, why can't I just send in clones and wait in the trees with you guys?" Arashi grumbled. "I could make so many clones your head would spin, and you want me to make _two_?" It seemed pretty ridiculous considering that, in the past... future... _whatever_, Arashi had made hundreds of clones at once. Hell, even now clones were easier than ever before, and that was saying something!

"If your clones get hit while holding the scrolls they'll be dropped, baka," Kentaro's grumble now carried a hint of scowl that Arashi could almost see as his eyes adjusted to the lowered light when the moon was suddenly blocked by clouds. "The clones are just to defend you and make the other team think the entire team is there."

One mumbled "whatever" was all Arashi got to say before Kentaro gave him a good kick in the pants to get going. He formed his seal and two bunshin popped up to either side of him. They henge'd into the form of his other teammates so as to make the appropriate sounds of movement, just in case the other team did wake up. Three sets of identical steps would be really obvious. They took a moment to get a good eye on the group in the clearing and – making extensive use of all the skills that had come in handy for pranking the village – crept into the small encampment.

It was silent, for the most part. Each of the moving figures made light sounds as their feet fell on the forest floor. Six eyes were wide open and searching for traps and a hidden foe, though neither was forthcoming. The Kentaro-clone made a motion with his hand, the old code that Team Kakashi had used on missions, to indicate which pack seemed to hold the other team's scrolls. The Kakashi-clone had made a similar sign from the pack he was surreptitiously checking and Arashi had to avoid groaning.

While Kentaro was content to keep all the eggs in one basket, this team had scattered their scrolls throughout all the packs, meaning Arashi would have to steal all the packs. Considering one was _very_ close to the sleeping genin – as in, wrapped in the guy's arms – Arashi wasn't too keen on the idea.

He also wasn't too keen on being the reason they failed the mission. He signaled the clones to take the bags that _weren't_ being clutched like a lifeline and run them up the trees with the packs while he slowly closed in on the other bag. There was a chance that they had all the remaining scrolls needed in the bags the clones had taken, but if not...

Arashi wasn't taking any chances. Not of that sort anyway.

There was a flash of something bright as the moon was once again uncovered, and Arashi was instinctively moving out of the way. Another bright thing and another – he noted in the back of his mind that these were kunai being swung at him as the sound of metal slicing the air got through to him – and he kept dodging.

By the time he had his bearings back, Kakashi and Kentaro were already with him, or perhaps his clones were (they hadn't dispelled yet), but even with his eyes taking in a lot more light than what he could remember they used to, he couldn't see them well enough to tell the difference.

Lashing out suddenly as the large figure he was tried to grab onto him, Arashi managed to catch the older genin in the gut with his foot, and a burst of chakra had him bent in half where Arashi's physical strength couldn't have managed. This was pretty lucky, as it gave Arashi the perfect opportunity to chop his hand down on the other genin's neck.

One down, two to go. Arashi jumped back into the fray.

* * *

Minato ticked off the minutes in his head, twitching in time with his watch. It was noon, or almost noon. But he was waiting to see which teams would come out, and the ten minute bubble of time where they were allowed to leave the exam grounds and still pass was going to start any moment.

Tick.

Had they made it? Granted, Minato hadn't had more than a week to train them since their last C-rank mission. Had they gotten in enough time? Was Arashi's handicap holding them back, or perhaps Kakashi's low stamina?

Tick.

And what about Maeda? Minato didn't know much about him. Aiko had called him a loudmouth and arrogant. His clan wasn't a large one, in fact, they had been farmers up until the Senju and Uchiha started Konoha, but they had a seat with the council that obviously went to the boy's head. Would Maeda hold back his team from their true potential?

Tick.

Come to think of it, how was Arashi doing with Kentaro invading their team? The two hadn't gotten on at all – Kentaro continually belittled Arashi over his size and especially his eyes – but how would that interfere with their combat ability? Technically it wasn't a combat test, but by no means was it disallowed either.

Tick.

The chuunin in charge of this exam raised a green flag, signaling that the chuunin hopefuls could start coming out to their starting points. Minato had placed himself within viewing distance of his team's area, but they didn't come out. Already he was mentally calculating how much money he would have after paying Jiraiya the five thousand ryou. It would be enough, since his mission to retrieve Tsunade was officially B-rank, and his assassination from earlier that week had been A-rank (nothing less was allocated to ANBU, even ex-ANBU called back), so he wouldn't be broke or anything, but he would have to take another mission so he could take Kakashi and Arashi out to dinner.

Perhaps Jiraiya would let him pay after another mission. He should take the boys out to dinner that night, otherwise it wouldn't really have the same meaning. But what would if they were hurt? He could probably still pay Jiraiya today and go on a mission before they were released from the Hospital, but he'd rather they come out healthy and whole when they did -

His mind ground to a stop as three figures – two dwarfed by the third – exited the training field. They looked well rested if a bit worse for wear, and they handed their scrolls to the chuunin who tallied them up and verified that each was the genuine article and not a copy before holding up his own red flag.

They had _passed_.

All thoughts whooshed out of Minato's mind as he whooped. He had been waiting with the other jounin instructors, but most had gone on to their own students as Team Bedhead had been the last to leave the forest before the end of the arrival-window, but he had no problem springing forward to stand beside his students when they had been cleared by their chuunin monitor.

"Minato-sensei! I thought you had a mission; what are you doing here?" Arashi tilted his head to the side, face set in an expression that would cute if it weren't for his eyes. Even after a year they looked weird.

"Finished early," Minato couldn't have stopped grinning if he wanted to. "I'll treat you boys to dinner, alright?"

While Arashi jumped for joy, Kakashi nodded his thanks. Maeda shrugged.

"I'm going out with my _real_ team," he glanced at the two children like they were bugged on the bottom of his sandles, which made Minato angry. "See your two in the finals." And then he walked off to where his own sensei awaited him.

"More for us," Minato didn't really mind much. While it might not be very professional to dislike a kid four years younger than himself – and Minato was certainly a professional – dinner wasn't a formal thing anyway. Well, not a dinner out for Team Bedhead anyway, since even if Minato were to insist, Arashi would probably refuse to wear anything other than regular civilian clothes or his black jumpsuit.

And, speaking of the jumpsuit, it was getting a bit small. Well, to be more accurate, Arashi was getting a bit big.

Shrugging the thought away, Minato shrugged literally as well. "I'll go get the details of the next exam from Hokage-sama, and you boys can head back to Uzumaki-san's place to get cleaned up," he continued as if his mind hadn't taken a complete tangent. Perhaps he was spending too much time around strange people? "You're moving back to my apartment after the exam, but Uzumaki-san said you're still welcome at her house... and I guess you can invite her to dinner with us if she promises not to put chili powder in my miso again or something."

"Sure thing, Sensei!" Arashi was still hopping for joy, and like hyperactive children everywhere he showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. He also seemed completely oblivious to the twig in his hair and the large smudge of dirt on his face, or even the grass stains on the black jumpsuit, but that was just fine really.

The two children left in the direction of Kushina's home while Minato went to the meeting for the jouni instructors of all passed cells.

Again, he couldn't help the grin on his face. He'd won the bet with Jiraiya, which meant the old foagy was honor-bound to help Arashi with whatever was wrong with his chakra – aside from the whole sage thing.

The world felt right for the first time since the start of the war.

**Author's Note: Ha! See? I got this one out faster. It's longer, makes me happier, and it's the eighth chapter. Nothing really **_**special **_**about the number eight, but whatever. ****What with all the idea-bouncing Corselli and I have been doing in and out of school, we really only touched on the exams... but they are a big part of any shinobi's life. Hope I'm doing a good job at the exams... by the way, the chocolate idea was spurred on by a conversation with Corselli where she suggested borrowing an idea from Avatar (apparently at one point there was something like the chocolate-exam, but with rock candy... or something. I don't watch tv though, so...)**

**Gyaa! Last chapter on update day and the day after? I got more reads than I've EVER had in a single day (both exceeding by over 500 reads). And that was when I update at, like, four in the afternoon. Woah. Happiness abounds; I mean it. Oh, and new chapter of Naruto? For first time in a while, I liked it; it gave me the giggles!**

**Right, Hitokiri Onib brought something up in a review, and this is a basic explanation of it, since I realized I haven't actually explained it: Naruto fell into the frog oil pond his first night of training. He had sort of been taught how it worked, and he had tried using it, only to start turning into a frog statue. He was self-assured however, and before he actually knew anything, he fell in. Also, his sage chakra is not perfected. While his body is now naturally molding it, it's not the exact correct ratios, which is why he's not getting all the perks... yet. But Minato has had him so hung up on the failings of his imperfect chakra that he's been focusing on everything else because he thinks it is an un-fixable handicap. And also note that Fukasaku had to bring up the "looking left and right at once" thing for it to click that his clones could help, so it's perfectly reasonable that he hasn't thought of it. Also, he hasn't been trying any techniques bigger than kage bunshin because they're all volatile, and he's afraid Kyuubi might come out if he pulls too much chakra.**

(1) A rather mean-spirited nickname that Kentaro has given to Arashi; it literally translates to "scary eyes" - basically just Kentaro taking out his frustrations by calling Arashi names as teenage boys are wont to do.

(2) Senpai refers to a senior colleague or mentor figure (such as an upperclassman or someone higher up at work); Shishou means the master of a traditional Japanese art (including crafts, martial arts, and ink painting) or a teacher (usually of the aforementioned arts). The latter Kentaro refers to in jest... sort of.

(3) Taichou basically means "leader" (think of how Naruto and Sakura called Yamato "taichou"). There are other meanings I think, but I don't know them. Kakashi is using taichou rather than the previous senpai (not even two hours ago in the story) because he currently sees Kentaro as the one in charge. It was temporary though, obviously.


	9. Chapter 9

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore, un-beta'd

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 9

Arashi poked at some barbecued pork with his chopsticks. He was full already, as were Kakashi, Kushina, and Minato, but Arashi still had a piece of pork in front of him. It wanted to be eaten, and he salivated at the thought even as his stomach sent him messages that were somewhere along the lines of "Filled to capacity! All new entrants will be revoked!" And yet he was ever so tempted to eat that last bit of pork.

"Quit it 'Rashi-chan," Kushina plucked the meat away skillfully and plopped it in her own mouth. "You don't need to get sick when you've got two weeks of training ahead of you."

Despite the "traditional" method of testing (though the Chuunin Exam had only really started up after the last Shinobi War), teams were given only two weeks before they were to show their combat skills to the Hokage and jounin panel rather than the previous month. There simply wasn't enough time to gain new chuunin – they were needed desperately – but they also had to make sure that the chuunin weren't as green as their vests.

"Yeah yeah," he rolled his eyes and started drawing patterns from the melted fat on his plate, still using the chopsticks. "So, Minato-sensei, what are you going to be teaching Kakashi and me for the Final Exam? Any cool jutsu, or are we still 'not responsible enough'?"

Even though Arashi didn't trust his little body to use any jutsu he would deem cool, he was still a ninjutsu type fighter, and he _really_ want to learn some new jutsu. The last had been some easy D-rank jutsu from Kushina (the only kind she was authorized to teach as a chuunin), and he had so many D-rank and low C-rank jutsu perfected now that he was itching to try rasengan or anything difficult again.

He was definitely going to try molding wind chakra again soon though. Surely _that_ would be too bad, right?

"Actually, I'm just going to be teaching 'Kashi-kun for the Exam," Minato said this so flippantly, but Arashi felt a huge blow. He wasn't...? The tiny blond deflated entirely, his hopeful eyes turning down to the table. Just like his real first chuunin exam, with Kakashi tossing him aside to train the _real_ prodigy of Team 7.

Arashi wanted to kick something. Hard.

"Does your pupil not have an instructor for the next exam, Namikaze-kun?" The sibilant voice made Arashi, already deflated, seem to shrink down in his seat. There was no doubt that this was Orochimaru's voice, but he refused to look at the man. Who knew what Arashi might do if he did? "I just took on an apprentice from the graduating class, but I believe Anko is _friends_ with Arashi-kun. Perhaps I..."

Arashi couldn't stand to listen to that anymore. The sheer idea... he was torn between ripping Orochimaru to shreds and running away. His higher functions were conscious enough to choose the latter rather than be destroyed by Orochimaru – he shunshined away before another word could be spoken.

It's fairly dangerous to use shunshin without knowing where one wants to go, but there was one place that Arashi always knew was safe. That place was fairly far away, being out of city limits but still safe. Arashi hadn't been there in a year, but that only made it safer because no one had followed him. The distance might have been daunting if Arashi hadn't pushed the chakra that was whirling around his coils into three separate jumps that left him a bit dizzy afterwards.

But he was too horrified to mold fresh chakra, too murderous, and his pulse had risen with the reaction of his adrenal gland. It was a display of unearthly luck that he should manage to be forward-thinking enough to not rip Orochimaru a new one rather than flee as he had.

He sat there for what felt like an hour, though judging by the sun it really hadn't been that long. He sat in the clearing, willing his heartbeat to go down and trying to reassure himself that Minato _wouldn't_ have just handed him over to Orochimaru. If he were any other person with less connection to the war council's leader, Arashi probably would have been happy to be taught by the man and to keep Anko sane in his grasp, but he wasn't anyone else and much as he liked being Anko's friend, he could still try without being her training buddy for two weeks.

Attempting to murder her new teacher surely wouldn't earn him any awards in her books.

Still, in his not-hour of sitting in the clearing, Arashi slowly took in his surroundings. Things didn't look _quite_ as big as they had a year ago, though he had grown only an inch or two since then, but he could still easily tell the exact point he had woken up in because it was dead center of the clearing. The sun filtered through the cloying fingers of trees, the light dancing in the grass while the sky turned orange, but other than that, all was still.

Perhaps that was why, as Arashi simply sat against the trunk of a tree and watched the world around him, the buzzing grew louder than ever before. Stranger still, he wasn't molding chakra, but that buzzing was still there and so insistent...

The loud sound of a branch breaking broke the moment as Arashi jumped to his feet, ready to defend. The broken branch fell to the ground, but no living being with it; still, the cause of its demise was obvious, as the break indicated excess weight.

He looked up and had the strange urge to slap his forehead.

Jiraiya was hugging the tree that the broken branch was fun, apparently trying to make himself unnoticed or something. It was as bad as the camouflages he used when he was peeping! That is to say, none at all considering his attire. With his arms wrapped around the trunk and pumping chakra to keep himself affixed to it, it was a wonder Arashi had even had to take a few seconds to look up.

There was a moment in which Arashi wondered how he knew Jiraiya was using chakra, since he just as easily could have gripped the bark or used a kunai, but he dismissed this.

"Ero-sennin, what are you doing?" Arashi called up. This was technically only the third time he had ever spoken to his old teacher, but he still hadn't had any all-encompassing realization that this was his old teacher. Jiraiya wasn't the same as he would be in the future, and Arashi had to wonder if he would have to wait ten or more years for Jiraiya to be the same man he had known.

"Hey don't call me that!" The shout was somewhat mumbled by the tree. Having been caught, Jiraiya released the chakra that held him to it and landed on the ground with only the barest of sounds. "And I should be asking you that, gaki."

Arashi shrugged, hoping to hide his sudden discomfort as he recalled _why_, precisely, he should be here. "I came through here on my way to Konoha," he replied with as much ease as he could muster. An attempted grin was meant to make him seem happy, but probably only made him seem... well, _not._ "It seemed safe. Why? Am I not supposed to be here?"

"Huh? No..." Jiraiya was giving him a glance that was at once suspicious and... pitying? Oh _hell_ no! Arashi neither wanted or needed anyone's pity! He'd lived through worse than that moment in the diner, and he wasn't going to be made to feel any different on _that_ matter!

"I don't need your help or anything," Arashi scowled at the older man. He figured that, on any other kid of his supposed age, it wouldn't be particularly volatile, but given the state of his _eyes_, well, it might look kind of creepy. "I just wanted some peace and quiet, that's all."

A sage-like nod (1) came from Jiraiya, just the same as he always used to. "I get it kid. Well, the chuunin exams are hard, especially for someone with a handicap like yours. It's a learning experience though, right?"

Now Arashi was confused, and said so. "Besides, I still have two weeks before the tournament," with or without his teacher, though he didn't voice that part, "so maybe I can figure out more about my chakra." Without Minato to instruct him, Arashi thought it might be best to try using wind chakra again since he hadn't in a year, but without anyone like Yamato to control the Kyuubi it would be risky.

But, really, when had Arashi ever cared much about risks to himself? It was one thing to be worried about killing himself by trying Rasengan and another to kill himself through a youkai overload. He was fairly certain that if he _did_ go Kyuubi that he wouldn't attack Konoha though; according to Minato's report, he had only attacked the enemy, so hopefully that wouldn't be too bad.

"Wait... the Finals?" Jiraiya's question snapped Arashi back to reality.

"Well we passed the second part, so yeah, the Finals," Arashi gave the hermit a strange look. Jiraiya was on the board for chuunin placement on this exam – the entire reason he hadn't left Konoha for more spying right after retrieving Tsunade this time – so he should know what teams made it to the Finals, right?

"Damn," Jiraiya wilted and the mini-sage couldn't help but give him a strange look... and to feel insulted. "Looks like I lost my bet with Minato."

As nice as it was to know that Minato had been sure that his students were good enough to make the Finals, it made Arashi even more aware that Minato would _not_ be training him and that he _might_ be sloughed off onto Orochimaru's evil hands to deal with.

"I'm sure Kakashi will do really well," Arashi stated finally, unable to think of anything else to say on that matter. "Minato-sensei is really good at teaching, and Kakashi is really smart, so I think he might make chuunin."

"And you won't?" Jiraiya looked confused now. Serves him right!

"Sensei is only teaching Kakashi for the exam," Arashi shrugged. He walked back to the tree he had been resting against earlier and sat down on the roots again. "I... kinda left before he could tell me if he made any arrangements for me... but he's _my_ sensei too, y'know? He's not supposed to just leave me in the dust! I know I'm not a genius like Kakashi, I don't pick up on taijutsu training as fast as he does, but Minato-sensei shouldn't just be focusing on Kakashi when he has two students, right? He's just like K- er, my sensei from back home. I just..." Arashi huffed. He needed to rant really _really_ badly, but a lot of it would be pointing out that Minato didn't like him, and that probably wasn't the best thing to say in front of Jiraiya. "I can do my own training though. I know lots of stuff that I want to try, and I don't need Baka-sensei to help me!"

Arashi figured he was pretty good at telling people's emotions judging by facial expressions. Well, he could tell hostile from not easily enough, considering his childhood, but that was beside the point. He was merely surprised that he couldn't figure out what Jiraiya was thinking. He knew Jiraiya like he knew Sakura or Sasuke, especially after two years of training under the man.

But Jiraiya's expression was indecipherable.

"You're meeting your instructor at training ground 29 tomorrow at noon," Jiraiya stated after a moment. "I think Minato wanted to tell you himself, but since I lost the bet and he scared you off..." Jiraiya trailed off. Arashi's head whipped up to look at the old hermit (well, not so old; he was barely in his thirties), shocked.

"You mean _you_..." For a moment, Arashi was willing to forgive Minato for picking Kakashi over him.

"Not me personally," Jiraiya's words cut Arashi's mood once more. Had his early life been this much of a roller coaster the first time around? "My senjutsu is a lot better than yours, but I'm not good enough to really train you in it. My deal with Minato was to provide you with a teacher. Hiruzen-sensei – that's Hokage-sama to you – and I agreed to wait for a few years since it'd pretty much suck if you got turned into a frog statue, but I'm sure Fukasaku will figure something out..."

In that moment, Arashi whooped with glee. Yes, he would forgive Minato this time.

And maybe he would trust himself enough to use complex jutsu when his training with the toads was over. But he had two weeks for that, and for now he launched himself at Jiraiya.

Sure, this wasn't _his_ ero-sennin, but he would be.

The moment was broken by Jiraiya muttering under his breath, "Kids are too emotional to be chuunin." Arashi delivered one of his special chakra-punches, not that it did much more than prove Jiraiya's point.

* * *

The next day, Arashi was waiting at the predetermined time for Jiraiya to arrive. It didn't take long, and Jiraiya didn't actually pay him much attention. He just came by, summoned a couple of toads – Fukasaku and a random toad to make his getaway upon – and left.

And so Arashi found himself being stared down by the elderly toad that he hadn't even known for a full day before this time-travel travesty fell upon him. He was still happy to see the old toad, since he was the last being that had been seen by Naruto before all of this happened. And, really, the little old toad looked at him just the same way as he had before, and he looked the same as well; not de-aged a day, unlike everyone else that Arashi had seen! Well, the toad ha probably been ancient even while training Jiraiya, but that was hardly the point.

And the way the toad was looking him over...

"Hey, are you going to stare at me for two weeks or are you going to teach me?" Arashi grumbled. He didn't like being stared at, especially lately. Looks of recognition were fine, but staring was too close to glaring and when people stared at him it didn't have the same feel as when they were just looking at him. And since stares seemed to crop up a lot more often in relation to his eyes than anything else...

Well, suffice to say that Arashi liked neither his eyes nor the particular brand of notice garnered. It was a sign of how much time Arashi spent in the time of teachers – especially Kushina – that he actually used a word like _"garnered."_

"I'll be testing you first," Fukasaku stated, his voice firm. "Start molding chakra."

The tests ran along much the same vein as Jiraiya's tests back in August. Arashi had to mold chakra as best he could, and when his energies simply refused to combine and the humming in the air was gone, Fukasaku would have him do something else. By the end, the looks were less like stares and more for sizing Arashi up in terms of ability.

"Your chakra is incomplete, even more so than Jiraiya-kun's," the toad hopped circles around the strangely still six-year-old. "Usable, and it has obvious advantages that your body uses sage chakra naturally, but you don't produce it properly because you haven't stopped moving. You will need to learn to gather sage chakra properly, but I'm afraid you won't be ready for much more until you hit puberty. Your body simply won't be able to handle it; even young toads cannot use senjutsu to full advantage until they are twice the size of Jiraiya's transport toads. At least you won't need the oil though."

This was all news to Arashi, and he lapped it up, not even pausing to cringe at the mention of the oil. "So we can get my chakra under control? Does that mean we can get rid of my handicap?" The glee chining in his horizontally-slit pupils was obvious; Arashi was suddenly looking forward to this training more than any other he'd ever been involved in, even the elemental chakra molding that he had done with Kakashi and Yamato.

"We shall see," and with that open-ended answer, Arashi's hell began. (2)

* * *

Arashi was completely refreshed on the day of the third exam. After spending two weeks mostly meditating and getting his body used to what the mix for his chakra _should_ be as a sage, he had already seen an improvement. It had taken over a week to overcome the balance that his body instinctively created to keep his chakra in check, but when he had, Fukasaku had proved just how much of a difference it made.

The trees of training ground 29 would probably never look quite the same. Fukasaku said that was why they usually did such training at Myobokuzan, but since Jiraiya had not had Arashi sign his toad summoning scroll, it wasn't practical.

The rest of the weak was spent in the beginnings of retraining the natural molding of chakra withing Arashi's body. While his body would naturally create a set balance of chakra that kept him alive, it had changed to meet what Arashi was being taught to consciously mold. Not entirely, but enough. The red surrounding his eyes had expanded as if he were wearing eyeshadow rather than the previous semblance to eyeliner, and when molding chakra his eyes were completely gold. Although his pupils still weren't entirely human, they weren't slits anymore, but sort of blobby. This diminished his previous night vision, but it was worth it. Dark red and black lines now went from his jawline to run under the whisker-scars on his cheeks. (3)

All in all, Arashi thought he looked a lot cooler than he had when his eyes were creepy. Now they were just... well, weird, but not creepy in his opinion.

His handicap had increased now that his body had mostly fixed its balance and Arashi could mold the chakra almost right just on reflex, but he had quickly learned that he could store far more sage chakra in his body than was strictly necessary. In his mind it was still an improvement of sorts... even if sitting still for long enough to _collect_ the natural energy and mold his sage chakra was boring as hell.

Having had the entire night to rest, Arashi was wide awake when dawn came. He had been staying at the training ground with Fukasaku the entire time, since the old toad insisted that the village air would interfere. It was better to do it out in the wild, but Jiraiya's instructions were to stay within the bounds of the village. That was fine, as Arashi had to make his way to training ground 36, which was closer to training ground 29 than Kushina's house.

He arrived just in the nick of time, as Minato had impressed upon his team on the very first day.

The line up of genin, all older except for Kakashi, barely even spared him a glance. Kakashi stared for a moment, noting the change to his face, and Jiraiya was _definitely _staring. Not in a bad way, just kind of flabbergasted? Was that the right word? Okay, so Arashi didn't actually know what flabbergasted meant, but it sounded right in his head, and he wasn't going to change it.

"Alright, Hokage-sama has already drawn up random lots for you brats," Tsunade belted out at the group of thirty-six genin. "We aren't doing this in the usual tournament style; you each have _one_ fight to prove you're chuunin material. Don't worry about injuries – I'm the best medic in Konoha – but don't do anything that will kill your opponent. That's the last thing we need in the middle of a war, got it?"

The heated glare sent at the genin stifled nonexistent protest. None of them would want to kill their opponent anyway, but being on the bad side of _the_ Senju Tsunade... well, the fact that her rank exceeded even jounin and ANBU scared them enough.

They were, after all, only genin, the lowest of the low.

Hopefully, after today, some of them would be chuunin. Arashi knew quite well that the panel probably wouldn't promote a six year old kid, but if he blew away his opponent, it could prove interesting.

Orochimaru was the one set to announcing genin to fight, and the one to call an end to each fight. Arashi managed to not go on a murder spree or anything, but he still didn't like how those eyes stopped on him in the line-up. He did his best to ignore the pedophile.

The first three pairs were people Arashi had never met. Well, he'd seen them of course, he'd seen all the other genin teams, but he hadn't met them. For each the winner of the match was clear from the start, and the winner would walk off as though he were already promoted. It wasn't necessarily true though; Shikamaru had forfeited his match and he was the only genin from Arashi's original exam to make chuunin that time.

He thought it might be poetic justice should he be able to fight against Kentaro and then wipe the floor with him. Kentaro had constantly picked on Arashi after all, for his eyes, height, age, clumsiness, and even his handicap on occasion. But the odds were far against it.

It was worsened when Orochimaru called for Kentaro and Kakashi to face off. Arashi despaired, but he watched the fight with an almost hungry eye.

Well, he _was_ hungry, having come to the exam straight after waking, but food could wait.

Kakashi stood in the stance for the children's taijutsu style, watching Kentaro take the same stance he had for all the spars they had engaged in under Minato's watchful eye. The whistle went off, but for once Kentaro wasn't the one to make the first move. Kakashi darted forward with surprising speed for a small child, going under Kentaro's guard before he could reassert his own charge.

Obviously, the silver-haired genin had been thinking about surprising Kentaro. In their spars, Kentaro was the one to charge unless it was three-way, in which case three of Arashi's clones would have rushed him. Kakashi never made the first move, and it had thrown the older boy off. Arashi grinned; if he couldn't kick Kentaro's ass, Kakashi was the next best choice.

Kakashi led off with a punch to Kentaro's bicep. Normally, this wouldn't do more than knock his arm off course for his own strike, but Kakashi's small fist had a more piercing effect than that of any of Kentaro's age mates. While Kentaro had to fight the urge to rub that arm, Kakashi used his position in the older boy's guard to kick the back of one knee. It was the textbook maneuver of their style – or it would be if it were in a textbook – and Kentaro could keep from falling.

Though he did managed to hook Kakashi in the midst of his escape, causing the boy to fall with him.

"Alright Hatake, I'm going to show you what my sensei taught me!" Kentaro stood from the ground, the front of Kakashi's shirt bunched up in his hand. "First I think I'll take off your mask though. No point in a gaki like you hiding it, unless you have a harelip or something?"

After that, Arashi could safely say that he was glad he never put a big effort into seeing under Kakashi's mask, both the older and younger. Perhaps Kakashi took it as an insult, or it might have had to do with a family tradition of wearing masks like that one, but as soon as Kentaro had actually touched the mask, Kakashi was flailing, with sharp objects in hand.

When a kunai severed a tendon in Kentaro's wrist, the older boy had no option but to let Kakashi go and cradle the offending limb.

"Match to -" Orochimaru was cut off, however.

"I'm not done!" Kentaro snapped. Even as his hand released a more than steady drip of blood onto the ground, Kentaro was refusing to give up. However, unlike many shinobi who did the same, there was no honor to this action, only wrath and a bit of stupidity. Arashi wasn't being biased in the least; Kentaro was simply angry and vengeful.

When he ran forward, he scooped up some mud, saturated with with his own blood, in the weak hand and coated both his hands in it before forcing his protesting fingers to do a short series of seals that they fumbled through due to his injury. Arashi could feel a concentration of chakra on the boy's hands as they reached forward to Kakashi.

And then Kakashi ducked, tripped his opponents, and Kentaro's hands were instead plunged deep into the earth. Pale from blood loss, Kentaro could not support himself and crumpled as a jounin from the panel pulled him out of the dirt and brought him to Tsunade to be healed. The entire battle was over in less than a minute due to Kentaro's actions. It wasn't that he was unskilled, he simply had too much pride and couldn't handle any slights.

What that finishing move of his was supposed to be, Arashi wasn't sure if he wanted to know. From the way his hands had sunk into the earth, it had seemed sort of like an earth element version of chidori, but probably not as powerful.

Whatever it was probably hadn't made a good impression on the examiners anyway.

More and more fights were called, and while Arashi wasn't the best judge of what chuunin level was, he could see that there were plenty of good contenders for the position.

"Nobuo (4) and Kazama Arashi," Orochimaru called out. Arashi was quick to enter the mini arena that had been set up, though he couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the blood stains he had landed next two. Kentaro had bled a _lot_.

Nobuo was one of the older genin. In fact, he was from one of the teams that Arashi's had _tried_ to ambush. Now that Arashi could get a better look, he thought the older boy was maybe a year or two younger than Minato, which was a bit embarrassing for anyone that age. His classmates from the academy were probably just starting to qualify for tokubetsu jounin or settling into higher chuunin level, and he was still a genin.

Not that Arashi was any better, except for the fact that he had always been ridiculously strong and should have been a chuunin, maybe even tokubetsu jounin (in his not-so-modest opinion) when he was still fifteen. But he still couldn't help but feel sorry for the older boy.

"Begin!"

Arashi's hands went immediately to the ram seal as he summoned up four shadow clones. They formed a guard around him in the standard manji formation, drawing weapons from either a thigh pouch or the orange kunai pouch at their waists. Nobuo had yet to move an inch, his eyes locked solely on the real Arashi as if the shadow clones weren't there.

When they rushed him, two clones were lifted by their collars and slammed into the ground while Nobuo easily put all his weight on his hands to cartwheel away from the other clones. He was quick, flexible, and according to the deceased clones, strong.

Probably a taijutsu specialist, though not to the same extent as Lee had been obviously. And he was still eyeing the real Arashi, who had stood back in the assault. Two clones were behind Nobuo now, but he did not seem at all disturbed by the idea. Arashi continued to observe as Nobuo dispatched the two clones.

That, however, had been entirely Arashi's intent. Well, he had kind of hoped that his clones would work, but they were weak to begin with. They had been purposefully below par, but Arashi had an idea of his opponent now.

So without further ado, he took his pre-molded sage chakra and ran at his opponent. It might have seemed like a stupid move, but Arashi had managed to work out some tactics with Fukasaku. Not many – Fukasaku claimed it would take weeks to learn the sage taijutsu style, even when his body had grown – but he had ideas, and he had the raw power to back them up.

Not to say that his opponent was unskilled, it was just that Arashi had equal shinobi experience under better teachers, had a humongous chakra capacity, and happened to have learned an even better way to use his chakra in a fight without using any ninjutsu. Seeing the little crater he had created when Nobuo tried to repeat the trick he had done on the clones, Arashi couldn't help but be proud as his concentrated chakra burst, now more controlled than what he had figured out how to do in early March, sent his opponent flying off to the side.

Nobuo tried to put up a good fight, but Arashi had been above genin level for so long, and now that he had even a modicum of his old self back... well, nothing short of the Kyuubi bursting out of his belly button was going to keep him from moving forward.

The dormant dream of Hokage sprung forward in Arashi's mind, and he knew he had never had more reason to follow it than he did in the past.

* * *

It was inconceivable and stupid, but it was the truth. Arashi and Kakashi had both made chuunin, the youngest on record. Most of the candidates who attended the advancement ceremony had gawked when the youngsters were announced, but none of them could deny that they were good enough in combat. Both took down larger genin with more experience, neither were injured, and they had proved themselves entirely.

Later, Minato would divulge that a large part of the jounin panel voting them in was because of Jiraiya and Orochimaru. Orochimaru had been highlighting their successes and how they offset the size difference perfectly, though he was more interested in Arashi's performance than Kakashi. Jiraiya was quick to note that Arashi had improved his control in the past two weeks that it was likely that he could take on a chuunin at this point – and that was without any large jutsu aside from his kage bunshin.

The knowledge of kinjutsu probably helped a bit in that as well.

Still, Arashi did not yet know these things as he sat in his chair, practically bouncing. His new job took place every afternoon – aside from weekends – which left little time for regular missions. He had complained to the Hokage when Minato was gone about feeling useless, but this seemed a bit extreme to him.

And he couldn't halt the jitters that had him bouncing in his seat.

Oh, he was excited of course. He had a proper job, something useful in its own right, and he would still have time to play with Asuma and Anko (provided Orochimaru would let her) as well as training with Minato and Kakashi in the mornings. Due to their age, Team BedHead was not to be split up, though there was still the chance that Minato would be replaced on occasion for when he had missions for the war.

In other words, more and more often as the conflict grew. For now it was still mostly border scuffles and espionage, but Minato had guessed that they had a year at most before there were large scale battles happening. Until then...

The door opened suddenly and Arashi sat ramrod straight, watching as figures filed into the room, full from lunch. They talked and laughed and did everything that the first year students at the Academy would do on their very first day, which this just so happened to be.

And they looked the same age as Arashi, all age six with a few exceptional fives or late-start sevens.

"Settle down everyone," their instructor, apparently a friend of Kushina's, called out into the room as she stowed her bentou box under her desk. Arashi resisted fidgeting in his seat against the front wall as dozens of excited eyes turned their attention forward. "There's someone I'd like to introdu -"

"Hikari-sensei, isn't it a little early in the year for a new student?" One child snickered. Arashi bristled. Sure they wouldn't know what his chuunin vest meant, not yet at least, but that was just mean!

"He probably slept in," giggled another, his stage-whisper to his friend.

"Look at his eyes! They're all gold and stuff!"

"Maybe he's an Inuzuka."

"Or he got into his mom's make-up."

"Or -"

"_Or_ he's my teaching assistant this term," Hikari continued from her students' comments as though they hadn't said anything of import. "Well, go on kid."

"But he's our age!" This protest intervened before Arashi could say anything.

However, when he did, he didn't hold back.

"Hey, shut up you!" He had jumped out of his chair and a good six feet forward, something that would be impossible for these green students. "My name's Kazama Arashi, and don't you forget it! I'm a new chuunin – to those of you don't know, that means I have the same shinobi rank as all the teachers in this building and I have clearance to go on super-tough missions – and I am _not_ wearing make-up!"

Silence. And then -

"Then what is it?"

"I have super-cool extra-strong chakra," Arashi grinned at the students.

"Hey, if he's a shuuneen, does that mean we're shuuneen too?"

"How come he gets super-cool catra?"

"What's a chakra?"

"What kind of name is Kazama Arashi anyway?"

"I still say he looks funny."

Arashi had the strangest urge to slap his hand to his forehead. Had he ever been this bad?

_Don't answer that_, he told himself.

This was going to be a long afternoon.

**Author's Note: So, Arashi with a proper idea of how his chakra works, even without full training, kicks ass, non? Enough to convince the examiners that he is good enough for chuunin at any rate. Two weeks of proper training can really effect him though, as we have seen in the anime and manga, though he obviously isn't perfect yet. Sadly, Fukasaku wasn't allowed to stick around longer (for plot purposes of course). And oh dear, he's a **_**teacher**_**? Well, teaching assistant, but you get the idea. 'Course, I've been planning that since I made Kushina a teacher. Hijinx anyone?**

**I put up a new poll this week. It's basically about some omake ideas I had (I'll probably write them all, but more effort will be put into the ones that are voted for). Mostly did that because I was bored. If you lot have any omake ideas, tell me? I'm thinking I'll make an omake chapter like I did in HPatHC (only, you know, funnier).**

**Sorry it took so long to post this chapter, but there were several factors. Most of them revolve around getting my playstation fixed and freaking out over the fact that I could play Final Fantasy 9 again. Another factor was illness (I don't trust my brain to make sense while sick). The final factor was I was writing other things, namely "Why Stalker Shouldn't Write SelfInserts" and a birthday gift for Corselli "Time Travel Travesty". Hope the wait wasn't bad – it was only a couple weeks... er, well, it could have been worse...**

**_Next chapter is an April Fool's Joke; if you don't want to disrupt the story's flow, just skip it._  
**

(1) No, the pun didn't occur to me until after I had written it. Shut up.

(2) Insert useless training montage here

(3) Think complete sage, but it isn't really. Thankfully, Arashi didn't gain any warts from this, just extra facial markings. (I couldn't stand to make such a little kid warty!)

(4) Do you get the reference? If so, yay!


	10. April Fools

Warnings: **April Fools! Not the real chapter**

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: a big joke. that's it.

_April Fool's_

**THIS IS NOT CHAPTER TEN!!! THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOL'S CHAPTER THAT I WROTE AND IT IS ONLY STAYING UP BECAUSE IF I GET RID OF IT, THEN PEOPLE CAN'T ACTUALLY REVIEW ON THE REAL CHAPTER TEN. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DISRUPT THE FLOW OF YOUR READING, SIMPLY SKIP OVER THIS CHAPTER.**

**And if you didn't read these notes, DON'T BLAME ME.**

**Also, it isn't even a funny chapter, so don't expect any laughs when reading it. Honest.  
**

Arashi was breathing heavily, exhausted from the rigorous training Minato had put him through that day. He had to sit down to still enough to mold chakra, and leaned his head against a tree so that he could just... relax.

It was only a minute later that something... prickled. It wasn't the same buzzing in the air that he had come to recognize as natural energy, but rather something _painful_. He hissed and recoiled into himself, and it wasn't until Minato yelled something incoherent that he realized he wasn't the only one to feel it.

Slowly, he eyes crept open, heavy from his exhaustion, but any hint of it fled when he saw that there was a man wearing an Iwa hitai-ate with a visible aura of pale orange chakra whirling around him. Whatever it was seemed a miasma, as Minato was on the ground coughing as the aura barely even tickled the air around him. And all Arashi could do was sit there because his chakra refused to react.

On quaking limbs, he somehow managed to stand, but the man was completely ignoring him. The visible chakra was flaring higher, forming into something -

No, not just something. They were forming into _tails_. This man was a jinchuuriki, and Minato hadn't even managed to look up because of the poisonous chakra that was invading his lungs. Arashi's legs almost gave out under him, but he refused to fall to nothing.

Arashi forced himself to stay standing, even when he had next to know chakra flowing through his coils. He forced himself to step forward, to grab a kunai, but nothing seemed to work as he wanted it to. He kept pushing and pushing for his body to run when it could not, but he had to save Minato, he had to stop this demon container. If he was there, didn't that mean that there would be more? That the war had escalated to unprecedented heights?

Then everything was red, and Arashi saw nothing until he stood in front of the council. One six year old chuunin, possessed of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, had killed all of the attacking forces. And he was to be put to death for reaping destruction and killing just as many allies in his rampage.

Orochimaru did the deed, but it would not be found until years later that Arashi had instead become an experiment; not until Orochimaru fled Konoha in the body of a fifteen year old blond with blue-gold eyes.

**Author's Note: Heh, April Fool's. I know, not funny at ALL... and you would have known it was a joke if you had read the chapter title and/or warnings anyway, so there. Plus the shear SHORTNESS of this chapter... well. I'll put up the real chapter over the weekend probably... :D And no, this is NOTHING like what the story is going to do. Don't worry.**

**Shigatsu Baka!**


	11. Chapter 10

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing, major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore, un-beta'd

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

Chapter 10

Jiraiya crouched on a branch high in the canopy. Below him lay the ravages of some battle, barely even a skirmish really, but even a small scale shinobi battle could be devastating. Not that Jiraiya was particularly concerned with this particular spot of land, or anything currently in the area to be perfectly honest; he was working and, more importantly, waiting.

He had already molded a small amount of sage chakra – since he was going to be perfectly still anyway, it was safe to mold a _little_ – and through that had sensed the natural energy in the valley to scout for the person he was waiting for. As of yet, it hadn't so much as blipped, but he kept his mind on the task, paying careful attention to the fluctuations of natural energy around him and keeping a tight grip on his own chakra. He wasn't a senjutsu master, not by a long shot, and he had to keep careful focus lest he end up messing up the balance and turning into a stone right on the Konoha border.

At this moment, he could really see the advantage of being like that Arashi kid. _His_ body molded sage chakra naturally, and at a better balance than Jiraiya's nowadays.

Suddenly (for when are such things _not_ sudden?), the fluctuation became a spike about thirty meters due East. A notably human chakra was approaching. Jiraiya released his sage chakra – no way could he use that in a fight without Ma and Pa – and glued his eyes on the figure that he could only just make out through the foliage.

The man was suitably nondescript for what anyone who had never met a shinobi would think they were like. Bland, dirty-blond hair, pale blue eyes, barely tanned skin... he might have stood out in Hi no Kuni since blond was such a rare color, but for an Iwa nin, he looked entirely normal. Of course, no shinobi was ever quite what the uneducated believed, as they all developed eccentricities throughout life, but appearances could also be deceiving.

Jiraiya continued watching each step, each twitch, each casual glance around the forest was easily observed. When the man came to a stop in the middle of the battle field, he didn't seem fazed, or even interested, and simply dropped his pack off to the side and started making a fire. It was a bad call for a foreign shinobi on the opposite side of a war from the country he was currently within, but Jiraiya merely observed. Was this him?

Then Jiraiya saw the signal. The man took off his hitai ate and polished it with a red cloth before tying it to his thigh. It might seem like a casual gesture to the unobservant, a chance to allow the pores on his forehead to breathe since there was no greater giveaway to a shinobi undercover than a pimply forehead and otherwise clear complexion, but shinobi would place their hitai ate in a pack or simply leave it.

With the signal given, Jiraiya casually leaped from his tree and landed with only the barest _chak_ next to the Iwa shinobi, causing the other man to jump.

"Jiraiya-sama! I didn't know you would be my contact," the other man smiled slightly and rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. He did some quick hand seals and raised the earth around his fire to expel it. The camp fire had been the first sign that this was the man Jiraiya was intending to meet, and at this point would only bring them both unnecessary peril, even if the wood had been so dry that it barely smoked to begin with.

"Psh, I'm _the_ contact," Jiraiya scoffed. And it was true. The Hokage had put each of the Sannin in charge of the field of war that they were best prepared to deal with. Orochimaru, ever the strategist, was acting as the General and directing his considerable mental faculties to the literal battles of what was quickly becoming a Great Shinobi War. Tsunade was the best medic in all the elemental nations, so it was no surprise that she was both running the Hospital and training as many field medics what she could as fast as she could.

As much as it would surprise anyone who knew him, Jiraiya truly specialized in stealth and the other areas of spying. He was a highly conspicuous figure, but that was what made him such a great spy; as the orchestrator of all spies currently deployed from Konoha, this was not the first of his men who he had surprised with being _the_ contact. The sage might be a seal master, but he was first and foremost a spy.

"Of course, sir," the blonde nodded quickly, the wisps of hair that made up his fringe waving wildly. "I... anyway, I was told to report what I found. I met Namikaze-san a year ago when he came through Iwa looking for Tsunade-sama, right before the war broke out, and -"

"I already know your story, Minato told me," Jiraiya waved his hand airily. Minato had actually saved the man's life, which had surprised the Iwa jounin a lot; most of his fellow Iwa nin wouldn't have done the same, and an enemy had saved him without the intention of interrogation. Apparently Iwa had been spewing bilge about Konoha being "tree-huggers" and obsessed with their own people being protected by love or some such rot and being the scum of shinobi kind, as well as highly arrogant.

And this jounin had turned traitor right then and there. Minato hadn't gone into detail on exactly what the other man had said or done to prove he would be a good spy for Konoha, but apparently it was a _very_ convincing display.

Jiraiya suspected it had to do with the man's open and sheepish nature. He would fit in well in Konoha.

"At the moment I've been placed on a solo scouting mission to survey the damage of several skirmishes that occurred along the Konoha border," the jounin seemed all business now, but several times he seemed ready to stumble over his words. "I'm a stealth specialist, a tokubetsu jounin because of that and the fact that I have higher than average chakra reserves, so I'm trusted for these missions. I managed to swing this one after one of the others told me it was my turn to report. Anyway, Iwa is on serious lock down right now, not that it should come as any surprise.

"Since the failure to create a base in Hi no Kuni, the Tsuchikage has limited access within the village for civilians, which has led to multiple riots and a lot of civil disobedience. Our ANBU squads are kept busy within the village, but they... aren't the same as yours, I suppose. Our ANBU are assassination specialists who are not skilled enough to be jounin, all tokubetsu jounin and chuunin, though there are rumors of a genin being allowed into one of the squads here and there.

"Also, I have recently been trusted to help with controlling a... special weapon of Iwa," the jounin started gnawing on his lip for a moment before steeling himself. "He is only ten years old (1), but the Tsuchikage has high hopes for the weapon. Despite his age, he is not a child, but rather a demon, or so the stories have been told. I didn't believe it until I was put on control detail, but the weapon is immensely powerful and wields a kekkei genkai far superior to any other I have seen. His elemental affinities are fire and earth, not an uncommon combination, but the way they are used is unprecedented. I saw him decimate an entire training ground by spewing _lava_ out of his mouth. Tsuchikage-sama referred to the weapon, Roushi, as a 'jinchuuriki', but I'm not familiar with the context he -"

"Jinchuuriki are demon containers," Jiraiya interrupted. So the Tsuchikage had sealed a demon, likely the four-tails given the elements involved, into a child ten years ago? He hadn't heard a peep, but... well, his spy network in Iwa was admittedly lacking compared to other locations. "At birth a child may have a demon sealed within them. Usually this involves the sacrifice of someone's life, or all the rituals I have found claim this. Go on."

Though, to be fair, Jiraiya had only started researching those rituals in his highly limited spare time after finding out that Arashi had a demon sealed in him. He hated that Hiruzen had forbidden him from questioning Arashi on his demon, or even looking at the seal just yet (what the _hell_ was that old man thinking, anyway?), but he had still managed to find a few scraps of information on his own.

"Roushi isn't the only one that Tsuchikage-sama has called jinchuuriki," the jounin spoke again at length. "I first heard him use the word about two years ago, give or take a few months. Another boy, his nephew as the Tsuchikage claims, though everyone knows this is a lie, has also been called a jinchuuriki. He made genin when he turned five, but no one can claim to have seen the child since then. He just... vanished. I suppose he would be about seven now (2). I can't be sure. Tsuchikage-sama might have killed him for all I know."

Jiraiya stared at the ground, mulling over everything in his head and paying special attention to each detail so that it wouldn't disappear from his short term memory. So little of what this jounin had said corresponded with what the other spies had told him, but Jiraiya was fairly certain he was telling the truth. And, given his position, he was bound to know plenty more about the goings on of the war council than three civilians, one blacksmith, and two chuunin.

And the idea of a seven year old with a Bijuu, perhaps controlled by the current greatest foes of Konohagakure... he shook away the thought. That little suspicion was tucked inside the back of his mind for discussion with the Hokage; for now, he had to deal with his spy.

In a split moment decision, but one made with Jiraiya in perfectly sound mind, he bit his thumb and ran through a set of seals that culminated in a puff of smoke and a fairly large toad – bigger than any human least ways - bearing a scroll on its back. It was taken down and unrolled moments later, but the jounin was eyeing Jiraiya warily, as if he thought he was about to be killed now his information was delivered.

While this might be normal in Iwa, Jiraiya didn't need to kill the man, it would be counter-productive to kill him. He had a far better plan.

"This is the toad summoning contract," and from there he explained. The jounin had not signed a contract as they were highly prized among all shinobi. He wasn't from a big clan, and none of his instructors had had summon creatures, so he never had to opportunity to sign on with any animal clans.

The fact that, despite their girth and yakuza structure, toads were quite good at sneaking into places and delivering messages made it a very good choice for the jounin. Especially when one took into consideration that Jiraiya was really only having him sign so that he would have an easy way to relay any pertinent information without having to meet up all the time.

"You just have to sign your name in blood in one of the columns, then leave your finger prints at the bottom," Jiraiya finished his explanation. The jounin bit into his thumb with a minute wince – stealth specialists who specialized too much weren't as physically durable or desensitized as combat shinobi – and signed his name.

The red squiggles and splotches that were used to write the sloppy kanji made Jiraiya blink.

The jounin had written "Kazama Arashi" in the column. (3)

* * *

At age seven, Arashi hadn't made much progress in his position, but in the war there wasn't a lot that the council would allow such a small child to do. They turned out killing machines at age ten and eleven, canon fodder genin who were lucky to make it through their first C-rank mission, but the Council had decreed that Arashi and Kakashi, no matter their skill, were permitted no such missions until they were ten.

But, he found he didn't mind. He had been chuunin for a year now, and found that, compared to Kakashi's job, teaching was a lot better. Sure, it had taken until summer for his students to listen to him (he'd gotten fed up and used kage bunshin to capture all of the squawking brats and had since become the idol of class 1-C), but it was interesting and he got to meet lots of people.

Yeah, far better than Kakashi's desk job at the missions' office. All Kakashi did was accept mission reports and file them. Or, in very rare cases, he would have to bring important information to the Hokage an Orochimaru. It gave him more time for personal training, but Arashi still preferred his job.

After a year on the job, Arashi had figured out a lot about his position as "teacher's aide". Mostly, he was an errand boy, expected to do all the copying, running papers to other rooms, watching the class on the occasions that the real teacher had to leave, and grading multiple choice tests. He also had to set up the targets for throwing practice.

Each term of the school year, however, Arashi was relocated to a different room as teachers decided was necessary. It wasn't as hard to gain respect from the other first year classes since they had heard of him from class 1-C, and Arashi had a lot more fun in the later two classes.

Today, however, Arashi couldn't really do anything, because there had been a battle. A real, honest to god, large-scale battle between Konoha and Iwa. It had wreaked havoc throughout the small country that it had been waged in, but the bodies being brought back to be taken care of as families saw fit had been occasion enough for teachers to cancel school. Among the dead had been a new chuunin from the exams in August, a student of Anko's father, and the man himself.

As many as were dead, twice as many were returning injured to the village to be hospitalized. Worried as he was, Arashi had stood outside the building, watching the line of arriving shinobi. Minato had been part of the strike force and had been out of the village for a week. He hadn't been returned as dead, but then Arashi hadn't seen even half the bodies that were brought it.

"Out of the way, gaki!" Someone shoved Arashi out of the way on their way out of Konoha Hospital. He could recognize those pigtails _anywhere_, however, and couldn't do anything to help the hemophobic woman who was going out of her way to come to her patients rather than wait for them to come to her.

The numbers of injured decreased significantly. Or, rather, Tsunade had managed to heal many of them enough that they could continue their recuperation at home rather than at the Hospital. She was an integral part of the war effort, more than perhaps anyone else, and but just by healing twenty wounded men she looked completely exhausted.

Minato came out of the Hospital later that day, nursing a no-longer-broken leg, but Arashi couldn't help worrying about Tsunade. With the increase of wounded shinobi coming in from the battlefront, she had to be expending a lot of chakra. There were also civilians who got wounded, not to mention shinobi who were injured from regular missions, and that would only bog up the Hospital at that point.

During the usual play date with Asuma and Anko – not that Anko was there this time, as she had received quite a clear view of her father corpse coming into town – Arashi kept thinking about that and wishing he could hone his chakra control enough for medical jutsu. He would have to go to the library or something to find more chakra control exercises.

As it turned out, Arashi found dozens of control exercises that went beyond the water walking and tree climbing exercises that he had been taught previously. Those were second nature, but he found that there were techniques based on using minute bits of chakra to increase senses, and even one that looked like it might have been the inspiration for rasengan. Hell, come to the think of it, the rasengan was a complex manipulation all on its own!

Arashi took no more than two days for each exercise, quite a few being completed only on the first or second try, but he knew it still wasn't enough. He could do the tasks, but he could apply that knowledge into his jutsu. Using the same amount of chakra he still made the same quantity of clones with the same individual chakra. As useful as some of the skills were, they weren't actually giving him better control.

He was a combat type shinobi. He always had been, even when he still used his brawler taijutsu rather than any actual kata, because fighting was what shinobi did. But he'd seen how other techniques were useful in combat, too. Kabuto had used chakra scalpels, a surgery technique, to sever ligaments without even breaking the skin. That alone would have been enough of a motive to learn medical jutsu since it would be that much closer to his dream of Hokage, but with the war on Arashi was focusing not on personal goals, but on the village.

It felt strange to see the entire village that claimed it didn't need his help, because he was little rather than because of the Kyuubi, and know that if given the chance and the time he could do something. In just a year he had grown a little bit taller, a little bit wiser as to how other people thought. Being around children who thought only of themselves... it had been an experience that Arashi wouldn't trade for the world.

Other people were real; he had known that from the start. Yet seeing the students in the classes he worked in, he saw how others saw him. Children at his age didn't realize that people outside their immediate circle were really there. As far as children were concerned, other humans existed for their own amusement, and it was likely that most adults thought that Arashi thought that way as well. In a manner he did – after all, if someone was not one of his precious people, they were all shoved into the category of "protect, but only because I have to" - but it still wasn't the same.

And if he could just master his chakra, if he could hone it down to that same precision with which Sakura and Tsunade wielded it, he could prove that it wasn't just his precious people he cared about. He had learned early that, to become Hokage, one must protect the entire village, and this determination to heal those who were out risking their lives for the village where he could not was a part of his natural course. It was all he could really do in the current circumstances, but only if he could hone his chakra control.

Of course, that could have been his Naruto-logic speaking, but it made sense in his head, and Arashi was going to do what he could and then some. That was just another part of his nindou.

One day in May, two months after deciding that he would try to learn medical techniques, Arashi could be found on one of the training grounds. It was his day off, though sadly not Kushina's, and he was once again trying to apply his chakra exercises to some of his jutsu, specifically in trying to make a regular illusory bunshin.

That was his base-level. He had never managed it, simply because to him what seemed like a small amount of chakra was a large amount to anyone else. He kept cutting down that tiny quantity, and kept coming up with the same sickly bunshin that he had made in his genin exam when he was twelve.

He had already decided that if he didn't manage to get his bunshin right soon, he was going to start working on his rasengan soon. At least that could be supercharged with chakra without blowing up in his face... usually.

"Oi, Gaki!" Arashi looked around to where the voice had come from, plenty used to that moniker by now. Tsunade was sitting high in the branches of a tree on the West side of his training ground, not too far off from his current position. "I thought you threw around kage bunshin like cheap shuriken. Can't you do a simple Academy-level jutsu?"

By the sudden heat in his cheeks that had accompanied his embarrassment, Arashi knew he was blushing, but he staunchly refused to be ashamed. "I have a lot of chakra, and bunshin don't take much. I'm trying to have better chakra control, but none of the exercises are working. I thought this might help."

He felt smaller than usual as he said this. He was used to being small, and he had grown a few inches (from barely four feet to almost four-and-a-half), but he just felt very small when he admitted his lack of control. Perhaps Tsunade's elevated height had something to do with it, but reasoning – something he had been doing far too much of lately – didn't help the matter.

"Can you climb trees?" Tsunade asked. Arashi nodded. "Walk on water? Use your chakra to augment your strength?" Arashi didn't know what "augment" meant, but he nodded anyway. "How about sharpening your senses? Levitating a leaf over your skin? Dry yourself off using only chakra? Increasing your speed?" Tsunade continued listing every single exercise that could be found in the Konoha library, and Arashi continued nodding. "Then why the hell do you have such shitty control?"

"I already told you," Arashi grumbled, "that I have a lot of chakra! None of the exercises help with my control at all. Water-walking and tree-climbing helped when I learned them, but nothing else is doing anything! I've been trying for two months now, and nothing works!"

So shouting at Tsunade probably wasn't the best idea he ever had, but he was _frustrated_, damn it!

"Why do you need better control?" Tsunade looked down at him. "Arashi," and Arashi was surprised, since he hadn't actually "met" this Tsunade before, only seen her, "if you have the chakra for big techniques that would drain any other shinobi, why do you want to use the little ones?"

"I want to help in the war," it wasn't a declaration of his intent, just a statement. "But the old man and the council said that Kakashi and I can't leave the battle to fight until we're the same age as the graduating genin. Minato-sensei is going out of the village every other week and risking his life, and I'm stuck here running errand for the Academy teachers because I'm 'too young' to fight! I was part of the mission that revealed that Iwa was trying to invade, I killed people on that mission..." he didn't remember it, but he did recall the blood that had been all over his clothes when he woke up later. "I'm not too little."

"Aren't you helping at the Academy? Every ant has its place in the colony," Tsunade was being reasonable. Arashi was _tired_ of reasonable; people were out fighting and he was still useless, even after a year of becoming chuunin and regaining his drive. Even a year after he had started trying to be himself again, he was still useless.

"I work at the Academy for three hours every day," Arashi continued to glare up at the woman in the tree. "That is _not_ enough."

"Then what do you intend to do? The Council won't rescind its verdict because you become stronger, nor will the Hokage. You're a ninjutsu type from what I've heard; what do you think you can do?"

"I'm trying to learn medical jutsu!" He belted this out, not caring that this was Tsunade, his baa-chan, who he was yelling at. Just like Jiraiya, she wasn't his yet. "Because I saw how many people were hurt and how just healing eight men in critical condition had you barely able to stand up!"

Arashi channeled a small quantity of chakra to his eyes to better see the women, and saw her eyes narrow. Suddenly, she was upon him. He'd seen the movement, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid being pushed the ground with a foot on his tiny chest.

"You are coming with me." The foot left as suddenly as it arrived, and Arashi was lifted up by the scruff of his t-shirt, carried back to the village like a misbehaving puppy.

* * *

When Tsunade had signed Arashi up for her medical jutsu seminar, it had been unbelievable, even to herself. But she had seen something in Arashi's face when he lost his temper. She hated that the boy reflected Nawaki's determination to become a ninja, even though he was younger and more talented, he still had that exact same spark as Nawaki. Despite being a chuunin, the kid still had the same level of indignation that usually disappeared from shinobi in their first year.

But she had heard a lot about the kid from Jiraiya, Minato, and her old sensei. He worked hard, played easily, and still had the child's spirit that was lost in so many other prodigies. Tsunade had once met a child containing a demon, a long while ago when her grandfather was still alive. Arashi was much happier than that child had ever been.

But he also seemed to be really hard on himself in a way that most shinobi aren't. He was a seven year old chuunin, had almost mastered the molding of sage chakra (something Jiraiya hadn't mastered after half a year on Myobokuzan), and Tsunade could tell that he was far too hard on himself.

When he called himself useless, Tsunade had cuffed him lightly upside the head. Whoever had given the kid such an inferiority complex needed to have their skull crushed.

Ending yet another of her seminars, Tsunade went around healing those whose partners hadn't managed to use the basic jutsu that she had been teaching that day. It had been discovered in his first seminar that Arashi couldn't be used as a test subject because any injury he sustained healed within minutes all on its own depending on severity.

He also had yet to manage a single medical jutsu in his month in the program. A few of the other students could be heard grumbling about "the time-wasting brat" from time to time, but they would shut up when Tsunade asked if _they_ could mold chakra when they were his age. Since that wasn't taught until the second-to-last year of the Academy, they usually shut up.

Tsunade also knew that Arashi worked harder on his medical jutsu than anyone else. Minato had come to her about a week after his student had joined the class because Arashi had been knocked out small animals and giving them minor injuries that he would spend all morning trying to fix before finally just putting the creature out of its misery.

Apparently it had been creeping the blond man out just a bit.

Yet as much as Tsunade hated to admit it, Arashi simply didn't have any talent for being a medic nin. He hadn't been kidding when he said his chakra control wasn't improving beyond what the two basic exercises allowed. Apparently he had so much chakra that he received the same effect for tossing a _lot_ of chakra into the other exercises as shinobi who put in a little because he simply _flooded_ the technique.

In medicine, that could prove lethal.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time today, Arashi," Tsunade had held him back after the lesson.

"Wasting... but Tsunade-ba-chan!" Sometimes he seemed to slip to calling him "baa-chan" (4) which usually resulted in her hitting the boy. Operant conditioning at its finest. "I'm learning a lot. I don't know anything you teach us!" He also seemed to have trouble staying awake during the theory and anatomy portion of each lesson, but Tsunade knew he wouldn't mention that.

"I can tell you do your best, but I also know that these seminars are not doing you any good." She held up her hand to silence the child preemptively. "I know you want to help. That's why I'm doing this."

She had mulled over the decision for a week. If the original suspicions that Hiruzen had told her of had any grounding, this could be a devastating move against the village, but all she could see in the child was an earnest want to help. Perhaps it was because of how acutely she could see Nawaki in the blond child, especially after the boy had intimated that he wanted to be the Godaime Hokage – the child refused to answer why he wouldn't aim for Yondaime – but Tsunade had decided.

From her pocket, Tsunade pulled a thin chakra-enhanced thong (5) with a very familiar charm on it. She wore the identical part around her own neck, and the way that Arashi's eyes lit upon it was adorable – though the slug summoner would never admit it.

"My necklace!" That certainly got Tsunade's attention. Orochimaru had voiced those exact suspicions multiple times, and here was the boy fessing up to it. Of course, it only took Arashi a moment to realize what he had said. "Eto... I mean..."

"Jiraiya found it in the woods some time before I got back to the village," Tsunade shrugged. That revelation, she found wasn't as startling as it might have been. It had been brought to the discussion table too many times for Tsunade to be _truly_ surprised. "Apparently the jacket it was found with matched whatever clothes you strolled into town with."

"I... I thought I lost it," his eyes were still glued to the slowly swinging object that hung from Tsunade's finger. "My baa-chan gave it to me a few years ago..." The way his eyes flicked momentarily up to Tsunade before reattaching to the necklace made her wonder if that was why the kid sometimes slipped in what he called her. But she had already shown the necklace to him, and she tied it around his neck.

The small charm slid from the hollow of his neck and past his collar bone to rest in the nook of his hitai-ate. Then that too was lifted a bit so the necklace could rest properly on his chest, and Arashi seemed to have lost any hint of his previous disappointment with his progress.

That tiny bit of information was stowed away, along with the knowledge that Arashi didn't seem to know the history of that necklace if it really was identical to the one she wore, and Tsunade steeled herself for what the true gift was supposed to be.

"Slugs can channel human chakra," she stated. Arashi looked up again suddenly, his blue-gold eyes narrowed in confusion despite the tiny smile that still flitted across his features. "They can also mold it into other sorts of chakra. When I'm low on time I often feed my chakra to them so that they can create medical chakra."

His eyes widened, and the medical ninja smiled uneasily. Hopefully she was making the right choice... but if she was, then she might be securing an invaluable resource for the village.

She summoned the slug that carried the contract and didn't even have to tell Arashi what to do before he had bit his thumb open with his slightly enlarged canines to write out his name in katakana. A bloody handprint finished off his signature.

Tsunade looked at the boy for a moment, but shook off her thoughts for the second time that day.

"Right, I'll make some time after the seminar tomorrow to teach you how to summon, or you can have Minato show you the seals," either way would be effective. "It will probably take a while before you can summon any of the larger slugs, but when I deem you ready I'll show you how to feed them your chakra. We can talk about hospital shifts later. For now, _I_ have a shift in the morning."

And with that, Tsunade left the room, not sure if she had done the right thing. But he was a child, a secretive one perhaps, but a child none the less. He could no more hide his emotions than he could suddenly start using her grandfather's Mokuton techniques.

As plain as day, the boy wanted to help Konoha, and Tsunade was doing her best to enable it. Maybe she would come to regret that in the future, but for now...

Well, Arashi had the attention of the four strongest shinobi in Konoha. Hopefully it would be warranted in a positive manner.

If not?

Tsunade would think of that when the time came.

**Author's Note: Lots of summon contracts being signed today... Arashi becoming a slug summoner is credited to Siegfriedzz who suggested it in a review back in chapter six. It really helped me with connecting my plot ideas since I didn't know how to manage it... I think you'll start seeing that in chapter 11 or 12. Depends on how things fit.**

**Hm. Found a real timeline for Naruto. It seems I not only made Anko 3 years too old (which I already knew), but she wasn't supposed to become an apprentice until 2 years Before Kyuubi, which kinda made sense... and I made the Asuma-Kakashi age-gap too small (made him one year older rather than two). Oh well. ****C'est**** la vie. (No, I don't speak French, so I probably spelled that wrong.) Anyway, at this point (on the timeline I made) Arashi and Kakashi are 7, Minato is 19, Kushina is almost 20, Anko is 9, and Asuma is 8 (6), and... That's it.**

**Right... so, my little April Fool's joke? Suffice to say I have learned my lesson and will never prank anyone. Ever. Again. But it stayed up because I realized that reviews are impossible if people have already reviewed "chapter 10". I put a huge warning on it, but I doubt that'll actually help.**

**In other news, over 300 reviews :D**

(1) This is a guesstimate based on the image of all the jinchuuriki from chapter 420 of the manga. Roushi (Yonbi) appears to be in his mid-thirties in the image (in my opinion), so I made him 3-4 years older than Arashi and Kakashi.

(2) Since the Gobi wears an Iwa hitai-ate, he was at least at one point an Iwa nin. There really isn't much information on him (not on Narutopedia anyway, which is my main source for this stuff). However, in the image of him, you cannot see his face or get any indication of his age; I decided that he was a bit younger than the Yonbi container.

(3) The origin of the "Kazama Arashi is the Yondaime's name" theory is from the toad summoning scroll. When Naruto signs it, we see that the name Kazama Arashi is the one written before his, and so a lot of people assumed that this was the name of the Yondaime Hokage. Kishimoto also claimed this in an interview, and this was considered the truth until the big Namikaze Minato reveal. As noted in the first chapter, this was the false name that Sarutobi told Naruto was that of his father, but this is the true origin of the name. I've merely taken liberties to make that fit into my story.

(4) I think I've already said this, but "baa" is grandmother, "ba" is aunt.

(5) Not that kind. A thong is a string. Perverts.

(6) Just realized... not only are Arashi, Anko, and Asuma all "A" names, but they all have October birthdays... and in order of their ages no less. Arashi (youngest – 10-10), Asuma (middle – 10-18), and Anko (oldest – 10-24). Gods, how do I not NOTICE these things?!


	12. Chapter 11

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing (aside from a side-pairing of Minato/Kushina), major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore, un-beta'd

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

**I'm not happy with this chapter at all, but... well, whatever.**

Chapter 11

To say Arashi had been beyond surprised when Tsunade presented him with the slug summoning contract would be a grave understatement. Still riding the happy feeling he got from wearing his old necklace again (after two years without it at that), he hadn't second guessed that he should be so trusted by the woman. He wasn't sure if even Sakura or Shizune had signed it, but he had his necklace back and he would finally be able to do something.

He realized, in the back of his mind, that he was used to being able to do jutsu quickly – he'd learned Rasengan in only a few weeks, and it hadn't taken _too_ long to figure out how elemental chakra worked – and that not making any headway over two months was probably what had him frustrated. But he didn't have to worry about that now because he was going to summon slugs like Tsunade, and she had said they could use medical jutsu.

It was only about seven when Tsunade had released him, but Arashi was eager to start summoning slugs. Would it be like summoning toads had been? There probably wouldn't be that awkward stage where he was summoning tiny-slugs like he had with the tadpoles. Rather than head back to the apartment that he, Minato, and Kakashi still shared, Arashi headed to a training ground.

The soft skin of his thumb was broken easily, and Arashi had been a shinobi for so long that he hardly had to think about seals, let alone those so familiar to him as the seals for kuchiyose. He pushed a bit less chakra into the technique than he normally would to summon Gamakichi; it probably wasn't a good idea to let Tsunade _know_ that he was practicing before she was set to teach him or before Minato could have taught him.

When his hands slammed to the ground there was a giant puff of smoke enveloped the area and he could feel himself rising a few feet off the ground. His hand was now pressed to something squishy and slimy rather than hard and gritty as the dirt had been. The smoke dissipated, and Arashi jumped for joy on his eight-foot-tall slug summon.

The slug made an indignant noise and the next thing Arashi knew, the slug had separated into several smaller slugs and he stopped bouncing. Dirt covered in slug-slime wasn't as bouncy as the slug itself.

"That _hurt_ you know," the slug groused in concert. The smaller slugs recombined into the larger again. Its voice made Arashi think it was male, though he couldn't really judge since the only slugs he had seen were the boss slug (he didn't know its name) and the one that Tsunade had summoned for the contract. "Who are you? You aren't Tsunade-hime."

"I'm Kazama Arashi," he stated confidently.

If Arashi didn't know better, he might have said that the slug was giving him a nonplussed look… but slugs couldn't do that, right? Still, it seemed that this was the case.

"No," the response was so deadpan that it took Arashi a moment to register, but the slug forged on. "Someone by your appearance signed the contract a little while ago; Anee-chan told me so. But she said that you lied about your name. Okaa-sama said not to listen to you because you're a liar."

That was… unexpected. Arashi had signed his name as Kazama Arashi, but... okay, so it wasn't his real name, but what did his name have to do with it anyway?

When he asked, the slug scoffed. "Just because you signed in blood doesn't mean we'll listen to you," the slug loomed over Arashi seeming to look him from top to bottom. "Okaa-sama said that if you want to be a real slug summoner you'll have to summon her and plead your case. That's not how we usually do things, but since you lied she wants to see if we can trust you."

Then that slug dismissed itself with a puff of smoke and Arashi was alone in the clearing once again.

_Crap_, the thought resounded in his head. He hadn't tried summoning the boss slug – whatever her name was – because doing so would make it really obvious what he was up to since a giant slug towering in the forest would be highly noticeable. Now he _had_ to summon her to plead his case or he couldn't heal people like he wanted to, and the slugs would have no trouble telling Tsunade about him lying about his name since she had been summoning them for ages.

He molded a small quantity of chakra and tried again, this time summoning a young female slug, only just big enough to require that he use both hands to carry her, but she delivered the same verdict.

"Names are important!" The young slug squeaked. "Your blood made it so you can summon us, but you made Obaa-sama (1) angry because you lied!"

"I can't summon her though," Arashi sighed. "She'd be too big! Can't I just send a message along with you or something?" He didn't want to blow his cover. After living as Kazama Arashi for over two years, he knew certain things he never would have learned as Uzumaki Naruto, particularly that people don't trust easily in a ninja village. He used to think it was because he was the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, but had since learned that this applied to him even now as an "outsider".

Saying he had come from the future during his sage training and revealing that he was actually in his late teens rather than seven... well, he had a feeling it would involve the Torture and Interrogation Unit. Arashi had never been tortured (abused, wounded, and insulted, yes, but never tortured), and that wasn't anything he particularly desired to change.

"I..." the slug shifted in his hands, smearing the slime over his palms. "You seem nice... I'll ask Obaa-sama. Try summoning me again in a few minutes."

She poofed away and Arashi was quick to head to a nearby stream to get the slime off of his hands. He waited a while longer before trying to mold the exact same amount of chakra and summoning the little slug again.

The slug (Katsuko-chan), divulged that her "Obaa-sama" had consented to divide into multiple smaller slugs and that the next time Arashi summoned he would summon one of her. However, it would be a strain for the leader of the slug summoning colony to have a fragment in separate dimensions, so he would have to make it quick or feed her chakra while pleading his case.

Two puffs of smoke later, and Arashi was looking up at a slug that was twice the height of the Ichiraku stand, but still shorter than the tree-line, which was okay.

"You summoned me?" The large slug looked down on Arashi, giving him a good once-over. "You are... very small to be summoning anything."

"I am _not_ small! I'm just seven; you can't expect me to be as tall as Minato-sensei or anything," Arashi grumbled the last bit, but the slug continued to look down on him.

"And you lie for a second time, this time to my face," she didn't sound very pleased. "Why should I let you wield my clan? You have obviously tricked Tsunade if she allowed you to sign with a false name. So why should my clan serve you?"

"Because I can't be a medic," that was the entire reason he had wanted to summon slugs... for all of the hour that it had been an option. "My chakra doesn't respond to chakra control training, so Tsunade-ba-chan let me sign your contract."

"And why would you want to be a medic? If your chakra is too strong for refining, why not stick to combat, toad-boy?"

"I'm... too small. Hokage-jii won't assign my teammate and I to any missions outside of the village because of the war. He says we're too young. I mean, I can understand! We're the only graduates our age, let alone chuunin, but I can't do anything! I'm stuck helping at the Academy. They don't trust that I can help. But I thought... I tried to learn medical jutsu, but I can't. I'm going to be Hokage one day, and I refuse to be useless!"

"Hokage under a false name at that," the tone was condescending. "Do you expect _anyone_ to trust you, when you do not trust them?"

"I do trust them!" How could he not? The people of Konoha were great. Sure, they'd hated him once, or would, but the Konoha shinobi were all wonderful. The Hokage, Tsunade, Kushina, Jiraiya, Kasumi, Asuma, Anko, Minato... they were all great. "I trust them with my life."

"But not your name, it would seem. Now, toad-boy, tell me your real name I will consider allowing you to summon my clan."

Staring up at the towering form of the boss slug summon, Arashi acquiesced. "My birth name is Uzumaki Naruto. I... don't exist yet though."

"I am Katsuyu. I believe I need to have a talk with Gamabunta, young fox... good-bye for now."

Arashi was so glad that that ordeal was over, that it wouldn't be until he was going to bed that he would wonder why, precisely, Katsuyu felt she needed to talk to the toad boss after learning his name.

In the middle of the night, he would wake up wondering at her calling him "young fox" and worry over it.

* * *

Orochimaru closed the latest meeting of the war council – it had been decided that Konoha would not try to gain new ground in an offensive onslaught, but rather continue to defend – and waited as the meeting room cleared. Tsunade sat beside him, and Hiruzen by her, neither moving to get up. On Orochimaru's other side, Jiraiya shifted in his seat.

Soon, the room was empty save for the Sannin, Sandaime, and Namikaze Minato, who had moved to sit nearer the higher-ranked shinobi. Jiraiya had returned from his latest absence, which had lasted from January to mid-July, saying he had news to share. Considering plenty of sensitive information had been sent via toad messengers, Orochimaru was curious as to what Jiraiya had learned; the fact that he requested the meeting contain only the "Kazama Committee" as he called them made it apparent, at least, as to the _who_ that they would be discussing.

Tsunade also claimed to have an update on the boy since she had "returned" the second necklace to him, but would wait until Jiraiya had reported his information.

And Jiraiya's report... Orochimaru hadn't been terribly interested at first, when he started relating the information given to him by an Iwa traitor. Minato actually asked after the traitor's health with a knowing glint in his eye... did he already know some of what Jiraiya was going to say? But Orochimaru was soon lost from his own thoughts as Jiraiya began to speak of demons.

Iwa was training a young demon container of unknown rank with the ability to manipulate lava from a combined fire-earth affinity. Orochimaru started running through his knowledge of the Yonbi, as that was the one he knew to have those affinities, but he was again pulled from his own thoughts when Jiraiya mentioned the second Iwa jinchuuriki.

A child who made genin under the Iwa system at age 5 and vanished immediately after. Two years had passed since then. It didn't take a genius to draw the connection, though Orochimaru being one did help some.

"So Kazama Arashi might be an Iwa shinobi sent to spy on us by the Tsuchikage," he stated bluntly, leveling Jiraiya with a stare. Sure the information was sensitive, but this was important. Orochimaru cared for very little in this world, first and foremost being his own continued existence – preferably for eternity – and right after that came Konoha. Anko was starting to creep up on third place over the last year, but she had much to learn yet.

"We can't know unless we ask," Jiraiya shook his head. "The coincidences are certainly racking up though. I found out the name of my tokubetsu jounin spy hardly more than five minutes after he told me about his village's jinchuuriki."

"His name is Kazama Arashi," Minato stated. His gaze was level on Jiraiya. "He is an only child, and his parents were young chuunin when he was born. His father was an orphan, and his was raised by his mother and her brother until the former was sentenced to death by the previous Tsuchikage and the latter was killed on a mission. Kazama-san is the only remaining of his clan, who were once known for their natural sneakiness and an old bloodline that allows them to blend easily into their surroundings."

"Right," Jiraiya nodded along, "which makes it a physical impossibility that he could be related to the child currently living in Konoha."

"Yet here we are," Orochimaru stroked his chin slightly, reclining against the straight back of his chair, "with a jinchuuriki child with an unknown demon, unknown seal, unknown origins, and the exact same name as an Iwa jounin."

"I don't think Arashi is from Iwa," Minato didn't even shrink at the incredulous stare from Orochimaru. "He hasn't got the right personality for a kid who was trained to be one of _their_ killing machines from birth, and I know for a fact that he hasn't got any sort of earth affinity. I tested him and Kakashi a few weeks ago, and 'Rashi-kun is a natural at molding wind chakra. That, and I had to get out a map to show him where Tsuchi no Kuni was during our first C-rank."

"Minato, we can't discount any theories regarding your student at this point in time," Hiruzen intoned, his eyes resting easily on the blond. Orochimaru sat back to watch the show.

"Well maybe we could if you'd just let us ask him some questions!" Minato was standing, his hands splayed flat on the table. It had been a matter of some contention that no one could even _ask_ Arashi about his past. Jiraiya had complained about the Hokage's unofficial decree numerous times in his short stays in Konoha, and Minato had apparently been against it since before the first time it was "broken" – the initial questioning after Arashi had used his demon's chakra while on the mission that revealed Iwagakure's attempt to set up a base in Hi no Kuni. Lately, even Tsunade had seemed particularly irked by this, as she grew to learn more about him.

Orochimaru knew better than to make a move on the child given he wasn't the most personable choice – and Anko had divulged that Arashi didn't like him – but he was insanely curious about the child. He had given up on any idea of using his still-conceptual immortality jutsu with the child (surely a volatile mix of natural sage chakra and demon chakra would be unhealthy), but now Arashi could be considered a matter of Konoha security and professional (as well as personal) curiosity.

"Now Minato, I know that you want to know things about Arashi-kun, however –" Hiruzen was cut off.

"Sir, with all due respect, I know a _lot_ about my student," Minato had regained some measure of control over himself, in that he looked sheepish for having exploded but remained firm in his address. "I know that he is a better shinobi than he is given credit for. I know that he is young and impressionable and until Tsunade-hime took a step in the right direction and _did something _when he was highly discontented with his ability to help the village. I also know that helping the village is just about the only thing he wants at this moment in time. I am of the opinion that the best way to enable this is to ask him questions."

"I agree," Orochimaru didn't bother trying to stop the words coming out of his mouth. "The child, from what I have seen, is genuine in his intent towards the village." He couldn't say he trusted the child because children were untrustworthy. "Therefore, Sensei, if we were to know more about him, he could become a better shinobi for it. He is seven years old, almost eight. At best, he would remember only one year in his previous home, memories which will to continue to fade as the child grows older. If he _is_ from Iwa, as Jiraiya's contact insinuated, then now would be the only viable time to learn what he knows and to turn him in our favor."

The room was silent. Everyone present knew that Orochimaru had only "met" Arashi a few times (his stalking of the child, of course, had been noted by the assembled as it helped in information gathering). Namely, when the child revealed the beginning stages of his chakra mastery, at a barbeque restaurant that caused the boy to _flee_, and in the chuunin exams themselves. He knew that they would see his comment as a vote of confidence in the child's favor.

At this point, he wanted Kazama Arashi – if that was the child's _real_ name – to remain in Konoha. If he was an invader, then making ties as a child would make him a "dud", jinchuuriki or no. If he was not, then he was a powerful ally. It was a simple formula that most other villages had not yet grasped.

It was a formula that Konoha perfected to gain its many foreign defectors and spies.

"Tsunade, what did you want to report?" Hiruzen moved the topic along, as if the subject of actually questioning the small sage had never been broached.

Brown eyes darted between the men seated around her before Tsunade sighed and leaned forward on the table. Orochimaru didn't even have to look to know this motion drew Jiraiya's gaze to her chest.

"It's not as ground-breaking as Jiraiya's news," which was obvious given how Jiraiya's news was... rather incomparable to most other information they had yet gathered. "But the kid is good with the slugs. In fact, they _adore_ him. I guess it makes the difference to know that Kazama Arashi has to be his real name since it's what he wrote on the scroll and even Katsuyu adores the brat. Though they keep switching between calling him 'toad-boy' and 'fox-child', which can get kind of confusing. Every day he's been coming to the hospital first thing in the morning to summon some slugs and give them his chakra, but other than that... that brat is out of my hands now anyway. He hasn't gone a single day without wearing that necklace, either."

It was news, Orochimaru knew, but not great news. Toad-boy was obviously stemmed from the sage chakra, though fox was more cryptic. If it referred to the boy's jinchuuriki status, then that discounted him being from Iwa; the Kyuubi was very much not sealed, as was well known throughout the world. It was one of few now, as he knew that even the Sanbi had been recaptured by the current Mizukage. Jiraiya's sources in Mizu no Kuni hadn't reported news of it being sealed, but Orochimaru thought it was only a matter of time before all of the Bijuu had been sealed.

Still, the only fox demon great enough to be among the Bijuu remained uninterested in humans and hopefully would be for some time. It was likely the boy held only a minor demon.

Orochimaru could already feel his interest waning as their unofficial meeting was closed and he left to set up another training session with Anko.

* * *

Arashi was on the edge of a non-literal precipice. This was... well, it was a big step, but he felt ready for it. Up until June, he hadn't done anything really difficult with his chakra except molding small amount of wind chakra once or twice – especially at a certain restaurant so that his chopsticks would get stuck properly – because he was afraid of using too much. Then Minato had tested Arashi and Kakashi for their elemental affinities – unsurprisingly, Arashi tested as wind while Kakashi seemed to have a split affinity with lightning and water (2) – and things changed.

Because while Arashi had no trouble cutting a leaf in half when Minato told him to, he also had no problem doing the same with a kunai that was thrown at him in sparring later that day. He had been wrong to worry about wind chakra being at all dangerous; if anything, it was easier to do with his sage chakra than it had been with just regular chakra, and he couldn't help but wonder if he hadn't been wrong about his favorite technique as well. This had been one month ago, and Arashi was a bundle of nerves.

He now had one clone beside him, hands flying over a ball of swirling green-blue chakra (for it was now more green than blue after he had gained majority control over his chakra). The rasengan was formed properly in his hand, and Arashi couldn't help but grin. He _could_ do it!

Then he wondered – couldn't help it really – if Minato had started developing the technique. He hadn't heard anything from his sensei, but... well, he was really only seeing Minato for two hours in the morning and one in the evening for training and before the imposed bedtime that Kakashi and he had to adhere to.

Three months later, Arashi was leaving Anko's house where he had dropped off her birthday present - Orochimaru, it seemed, had taken her on a small mission with him, which Arashi found very unfair and rather disconcerting – when he came across Kushina. He brightened immediately of course; she was, after all, almost definitely his mother, and even though they weren't pulling pranks with the war going on, she was still the only adult who would have any sort of fun with him.

She was tugging on the ends of her hair – now down to nearly mid-back, though Kushina would never say _why_ she decided to grow it out – and staring into space. She didn't notice when the eight-year-old joined her in her wanderings. It occurred to Arashi that his mother was a very pretty woman now that she was twenty, but he contented himself with walking backwards in front of her and waiting for her to notice.

It only took until they reached their first intersection when Arashi had to jump onto a fence to get out of the way of some civilian children. Having jumped directly into her line of sight, there was no way that Kushina could ignore him.

Especially when one takes into consideration that he lost his balance on the fence as another chuunin sped by and she had instinctively reached out to steady him.

"Watch it, 'Rashi-chan," Kushina snickered. "Are you clumsy today or something?"

"I dunno, are you spacey today or something?" Arashi shot back. Kushina looked at him for a moment, blinking slowly, and looked away quite suddenly. If Arashi hadn't known better he might wonder if Kushina was blushing, but he decided it was just the early-autumn sun playing tricks on him.

"So I'm guessing you have the day off, too?" Kushina asked as if that little exchange hadn't happened. "Well, I mean I already knew that when Mina– I mean, when Namikaze-baka and I ran into each other earlier. Since he has a mission and all... anyway, let's get some ramen. My treat." Arashi wondered at why she would stumble over Minato's name, a tiny spark giving light to a whole new realm in his mind.

But they had lunch and plotted pranks that they could pull when the war was over. Kushina talked about her current students – the next-to-graduating class that contained a boy named Maito Gai who had recently become obsessed with trashy romance novels – and mentioned that when that class graduated, Arashi's cell would probably get one of them as their final member since that would be about when they could go on missions again. They both hoped the war would be over by then, but half-remembered history lessons told Arashi otherwise.

That night Minato was rather antsy at home and surely _his_ blush when Arashi mentioned his day with Kushina was imagined. After all, the pair only tolerated one another because of Arashi, right? (3)

The next day, all of this was forgotten when Arashi was summoned to the Hokage's office and informed that he was going to be gone for an unknown amount of time on a training mission. Arashi half expected Jiraiya to pop out of the wood work, but instead there was a familiar toad who looked at Arashi with very knowing eyes.

They were gone in a puff of smoke that Arashi was fairly certain should not have taken him since he hadn't signed the Toad summoning scroll, and reappeared in the place that Arashi felt had started it all. Myobokuzan looked exactly the same as it had the only other time he could see it, or as best he could remember after three years. The one thing about it he could never forget was the "food" that Shima served. He'd eaten well the past few years – he was certainly healthier than he had been originally – and the idea of eating bugs disturbed him greatly.

"I thought you said that I wouldn't be ready to try mastering sage chakra until I was older?" Arashi was curious; it had been a year and a half since he had last seen the elder toad, and he had been under the impression that no further training would be possible for... well, for several years yet.

Not that he didn't like the idea of learning greater control of his sage chakra! But it was surprising none the less.

Fukasaku glanced over at him, seemingly not surprised at Arashi not asking about where they were or what had happened or anything of the sort. "You aren't ready to master senjutsu yet, that is true," Fukasaku turned his body away. "In fact, your body shouldn't be capable of handling sage chakra yet, but it is. However, your body molds it naturally, and when Jiraiya-chan requested... I'm not going to be teaching you about senjutsu anymore until you learn how to mold normal chakra. I've never done anything like this before, but it should be interesting."

Arashi's jaw dropped. "Normal chakra... you mean I'd be able to just be me again?" He was hopeful; after all, even the more recent incarnation of his eyes weirded people out (though the kids in the classes he aided always found them "funny" rather than "creepy"). He had grown used to having super-potent sage chakra, but normal chakra sounded all too appealing.

"If you were ever 'just you'," Fukasaku scoffed, "then I would be worried, Naruto."

**Author's Note: Sorry, short, I know. I just... well, my excuses for being late are below, but I honestly just wanted to get through this. There's important stuff in it, but it's just stuff I want to get through... gah, I feel like I'm going at this story entirely the wrong way now...**

**A lot of people have contested the veracity of my claim regarding the "real" Kazama Arashi, but I don't get why. I'm merely using the reasons people had for the "Arashi!Yondai" theory in my story. I looked up the reasons why people thought his name was Kazama Arashi and applied it. I've been planning it since I renamed Naruto, so tough monkeys.**

**Sorry about the delay! My laptop went on the fritz – stupid piece of second-hand Dell crap anyway – so I've been limited to writing at home and over the weekend I was rather engrossed with reading. Then I got sick and had a bunch of make-up work for school. So... yeah. Sorry! I'm still hoping to finish by the end of the school year, but I have a lot of stuff going on with family and school for the fourth quarter. We'll see.**

(1) The little slug is the boss slug's granddaughter while the first slug was one of her younger sons.

(2) Kakashi actually has three affinities – Lightning, Water, and Earth – but I decided that while the first two are natural, the third would be gained with his sharingan (shinobi can develop more than one affinity; Kakashi is also shown as having knowledge in wind (which he apparently uses in one of the movies) and skills in fire (anime only), but it makes sense to me for him to have two natural affinities).

(3) Yeah, basically added that bit to show the start of Kushina and Minato's relationship... more on that next chapter.


	13. Chapter 12

Warnings: Major spoiler alert through chapter 412, crude language, no pairing (aside from a side-pairing of Minato/Kushina), major fucking about with the timeline, mild Super!Naruto, not completely canon, angst, clichés, AU, violence, mild gore, un-beta'd

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It (and he) belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, Shounen Jump, and various other companies that I don't know the names of. I don't own most of the mini-plotlines that will be used in this story either. They are toys in the play box of the internet, however, and I can play with them if I so please. So nyah.

Featuring: Minato!Yondai, Semi-Canon!MildlySuper-ish!Naruto, Ickle!Kakashi, and more

**I don't really like this chapter any more than the last one... :(**

Chapter 12

Fukasaku's words rang in Arashi's head. _"If you were ever 'just you', then I would be worried, Naruto."_ Naruto. He hadn't even _heard_ the name in years – outside of his self-introduction to Katsuyu in June – and there was no way that he was imagining things.

He didn't even realize it when he fell where he was standing, still gaping at the smallish toad. "How... I mean, I only told Katsuyu!" Arashi's mouth was working faster than his brain, but he was a little caught up in the fact that Fukasaku knew his real name. Had Katsuyu told on him? She had mentioned speaking to Gamabunta, but he hadn't really thought about that or anything.

"Don't be foolish," Fukasaku scoffed. Arashi jumped, and wondered if the old toad (800 plus years was a long time after all) could read minds. "Of course not, you idiot. You're thinking out loud."

"Oh," Arashi felt his face heat up in shame from that revelation. He honestly hadn't meant to speak. But if Fukasaku hadn't found out from Katsuyu, then... "How?"

"If you weren't already sitting, I would tell you to," he grumbled, looking down at the blond boy from a short toad-stool his steed had hopped atop. "The entire thing is _very_ complicated, understand gaki? I am going to be making this as simple as I can; Jiraiya-chan said you weren't much on theory, and considering how you ended up as you are, I'll not disagree. And trying to teach you this _practically_... it isn't worth it."

And he did explain, though it took multiple attempts before Arashi figured out what, exactly, the toad was trying to say.

"There are multiple timelines moving at any given point in time," had been the opening line of Fukasaku, but that hadn't really made any sense. The toad had hopped down to ground and drew three parallel lines and explained that time was entirely linear in each timeline, but it was also very easy for these lines to cross. "Almost all timelines are near identical to the one adjacent, except for one thing; they will never be at the same point in time. Some are twenty years ahead of the next one over, others only a few days – though that is rare – while the greatest distance yet known is a three-thousand year distance between two human dimensions because _someone_ found the secret to immortality. Some run at different speeds than others, and some don't move at all."

Again, this made no sense, but Fukasaku said that if he could continue his explanation is would make some. Arashi was doubtful.

"The same person cannot exist in two timelines. There is only one soul for any given individual to recycle in all the timelines. It will mutate as each incarnation comes about, but it will generally remain with the same personality, capabilities, and so on."

"Er… Pa, that's interesting and all…" Arashi looked askance at the cloak-wearing toad, "but what does it have to do with me?" The returning look made Arashi feel very stupid, like when he asked stupid question in the Academy, but he really didn't get it.

"You are from a different timeline." Which set Arashi to being stupefied again and left him to wait until Fukasaku continued. "The summon dimensions are separate from human timelines, so I am fully aware of everything that happened in your dimension and up to your arrival in Konoha a few years ago. I'll explain that _after_ you have some vague understanding of everything else."

So he continued the explanation, which Arashi still didn't entirely understand. There were a lot of references to crossing timelines and the like, and talking about souls and personalities and the nuances that make a person a person. He stopped paying attention after a while and tried puzzling it out for himself.

He was from a timeline other than the one he was in. That meant that falling in the oil had sent him into another timeline rather than back in time. But some of the people he had met were people he knew had been alive at the time that he went back – Anko and Tsunade for example – which might mean that this timeline ran at a different speed than his. Or else…

"How long was I in the oil for?" he asked, curious.

"One month for each year that you lost, at the speed of your old timeline, so nearly a year," Fukasaku had no troubles admitting to this. "Your current timeline is, for the moment, flowing slower than your old one. It's due to speed up at some point within the next two years to prevent any overlap with a nearby timeline."

Arashi had a vague idea of what this meant, and asked Fukasaku to explain it better. The old toad looked annoyed, but continued.

"Think of it this way. You are in a race. Sometimes you move faster to maintain your position and stop someone behind you from passing you, and other times you move slower, to catch your breath. If someone passes you, you will lose all the progress you have made – your entire timeline will be wiped clean of any overlapping people. Literally, this tends to take place by having a war or a large scale battle kill off all the overlap in the weaker timeline."

"So… so no one who I've met here – Tsunade-baa-chan, Anko, Kakashi-sensei or anyone – none of them are alive anymore?" He didn't like that idea at all. And as more people were born, more of his friends in Konoha would be dead. How much longer until he was born? Would he die somehow when that happened? Or would he never be born in this timeline because his soul was already there?

It suddenly struck him to wonder about Kyuubi, and he asked.

"That… is not certain," Fukasaku shook his head. "The Great Toad Sage has said that the Kyuubi is certainly within your current timeline, sleeping, but you have also demonstrated that you have it within you. It might be the fact that you only have the Kyuubi's yin within you, but you shouldn't worry about that. And it is not certain who will die as those in your new timeline are born, and who will simply be similar souls."

"That's really weird," Arashi grumbled. But it gave him hope. Tsunade might still be alive, and Kakashi may as well. It all depended on things he didn't really know about.

"You could return," Fukasaku's interjection caused Arashi to jump. "From a summon dimension you can go to any human timeline. I could put you back in your old timeline. You would still be as you are now, but you would be home."

"But… if you could send me back, why didn't you before? Why didn't you just put me in my regular timeline to start with instead of having me go… go to the new one?" Arashi stared up at the toad, hoping for some sort of enlightenment.

"With your chakra as it is, that was not feasible," Fukasaku should his head. "The sheer change in you would not have been compatible –"

"I don't care! You obviously knew what happened to me – the why and the how and everything – and you just left me in a clearing! Everyone's been really suspicious about me, you know? Because of my chakra and Kyuubi and everything, and I could have been helping everyone back in _my_ Konoha! And you just… you just left me there!"

"I did no such thing!" The roar of the small toad shut up the miniature sage quite effectively. After all, it's not every day that a relatively small toad shouts louder than Gamabunta ever did. "Whatever happened to you forced you to arrive in that timeline, and I knew better than to change it. You had been made incompatible with your own timeline, but when your current training is complete, you _will_ be able to return. The way that your body creates chakra made it impossible for you to survive. It is only now that the Great Toad Sage has decided you are capable of fixing yourself. Do you understand?"

Arashi nodded hastily. Okay, so Fukasaku hadn't had anything to do with it. "Why didn't you tell me about this stuff earlier?"

The toad sighed. Arashi thought it was probably because he'd been hoping the blond would keep quiet, but at least Fukasaku answered. "You were _six_."

"No, I was six_teen_ last time we met."

"Just because you were fifteen when you left, that doesn't mean that you were fifteen when you arrived. If you were as completely de-aged as your behavior has indicated, then your mind was reverted back to a child-like state as well. You have noticed the differences already, haven't you? You are healthier than you were, even so many years in advance I can tell. And I would think you learn faster."

Arashi had noticed of course; he was definitely a few centimeters taller than he had been when he was eight originally – perhaps taller than when he was nine, though he couldn't be certain – but he was adamant as to his real age being eighteen.

"That only proves my point; your short-term memory is longer than an adult human's," the tad shook his head. "Human children have long short-term memories." (1)

A moment of silence. "Oh."

"Yes, _oh_."

* * *

Arashi fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. He looked… normal. He had seen his eyes in a window as he passed, and though he had grown used to it, he still couldn't believe that his eyes were still blue and that he no longer had the sage-marks around his eyes. The past two months had been… productive.

Fukasaku had been surprised when Arashi turned down the opportunity to go home, but accepted it. His reasons were good, so far as Arashi was concerned. He had friends in his new timeline, and he had an obligation to help them. He had an obligation to his old timeline, but from what he understood, so much time had passed there – and it was slowing down again, so less time was passing anyway – that waiting until he had done what was necessary in his current timeline wasn't going to effect it overly much.

And the more time he spent helping his new home, the more time he had to get stronger to take down Akatsuki in his old Konoha.

The training itself had been difficult. Arashi had to meditate the same way he had when learning how to mold sage chakra properly, only he had to purposefully push the natural energy _away_. That part of the training had been easy – it was learning how to use regular old ordinary chakra again that took up the most time; well, that getting it to the point where his body naturally produced regular chakra rather than sage chakra.

One that hadn't changed, strangely, was that the seal still shone plain as day on his stomach. He had hoped it was just a side effect of the sage chakra, but the seal hadn't faded one iota.

But he was confident when Fukasaku summoned him back to his new timeline, in the same part of the forest where he had landed originally, and he walked back into town. His hitai-ate now sat where it ought to – Gamakichi, who Arashi was exceedingly pleased to see, had pointed out that the head of an eight-year-old human was very close to that of a twelve-year-old human (2) – though when he walked into the village, the chuunin guards didn't recognize him.

He found it ironic that, once again, he managed to use kage bunshin to escape those who found him suspicious. This time, however, he entered the Hokage Tower under his own steam and without so much as a single chuunin stalking him.

"Mission accomplished!" He shouted enthusiastically upon entering the office where the Hokage was seated. The aging man looked up, and it seemed to take him a moment to recognize Arashi.

Well, Arashi couldn't exactly _blame_ him. The only time anyone in Konoha had seen him without the freakish sage eyes had been for the last C-rank mission that Team Bedhead had gone on, and that had just been a henge to fool people who – as it had turned out – they had no reason to fool.

"Arashi-kun… I almost didn't recognize you," the Sandaime still looked a bit surprised, but Arashi wasn't feeling the least bit self-conscious by this point. Well, maybe a little, but he'd had the entire journey through Konoha to get used to people not staring at his face.

Now he was just an eight year old chuunin with bright blue eyes and equally bright blond hair. He'd grown used to the curious stares that his features drew, but he wouldn't be caught saying that he _missed_ having his automatic sage chakra for quite some time. Having his usual looks, even if he was ten years younger than he had been, was useful.

"Yeah, neither did the chuunin at the gates," Arashi grinned, scratching the back of his head and ruffling the spiky blond locks. "But I still got back in. Fukasaku helped make my chakra normal again. It's blue and everything!" The calm blue feeling of his chakra had been a welcome change; the green feel it had taken on was something that he had never quite gotten used to even after a year and a half since it had turned decidedly green from the blue-green it became after falling into the toad oil.

The Sandaime chuckled and lit his pipe. "I see." Even though Arashi was fairly certain he didn't mean that literally, he grinned. "Quite an accomplishment for only being gone five months."

And before Arashi could protest, he realized the truth of the statement. Because as Fukasaku had said, this timeline was speeding up. Apparently enough so that it moved faster than the Toad Summon Dimension.

"It felt like a lot less," which wasn't a lie, just not the strict truth either. "I figured I was supposed to report here so you could put me back on Academy duty or something before I go back to the apartment." He always took care not to call the dwelling space he shared with Kakashi and Minato "home" because he knew that it wasn't going to be that way forever. After all, the original plan had been to kick him out when he made chuunin. It may not have stuck, but Minato wouldn't want a couple of kids living with him forever.

Especially not when he and Kushina got together, whenever that would be.

"I already have an assignment ready for you to begin tomorrow," the Sandaime took a puff of his pipe and his smile seemed rather grave, though Arashi could not say why. "I had not expected you to be present, but this will make the mission go smoother for your team." He paused. "Minato will fill you in before you leave."

Curious, Arashi saluted the man and left. They were _leaving_ on a mission? That was strange. He and Kakashi weren't allowed outside the village on missions. But he wasn't going to complain; even the two (five) months in Mybokuzan hadn't made him feel any less cooped up.

Once outside of the Tower, Arashi was hopping across rooftops for several blocks before he landed on porch of the apartment. His key had been kept in one of the many and useful pockets of his chuunin vest, and he was pleased to find he hadn't lost it. The last time he did, Minato didn't let him get it replaced for a month.

He was fairly unsurprised to find Minato and Kakashi were both in the apartment. A bit more surprised to see that Minato was teaching Kakashi some sort of jutsu, since they were indoors and prone to destroying things, but Arashi wasn't going to complain about that.

Well, he might normally, but considering Kakashi was rushing at him with a kunai, he didn't have time. Instead, he pulled out his own kunai and blocked the one that might have gutted him. Kakashi's other arm was already going in for a punch to his face, but Arashi managed to bend backwards at the waist before snapping a kick to catch Kakashi in the stomach. The silver-haired chuunin continued his assault by completely ignoring the attack and using his freed kunai and go for the tendons of the offending foot.

Arashi managed to pull away in a timely fashion, but it was proved pointless by Minato picking up both boys by the collars of their vests and sighing.

"No fighting in the house," he stated before dropping them to the floor. "Really, 'Kashi, why did you attack him? It's been five months, and –"

"That's not Arashi, Sensei," Kakashi still hadn't put away his kunai and had taken a defensive position. "Look at his eyes."

So Minato did, and he blinked. Slightly embarrassed, Arashi shuffled his feet. "I was in Myobokuzan," he explained quickly, in case Minato decided to come at him. While he knew he could stand up to Kakashi just fine, Minato was another kettle of fish entirely. "Fukasaku helped me make it so that my body molded regular chakra naturally instead of sage chakra."

"Huh…" Minato still looked rather shocked as he continued looking at Arashi's eyes – most particularly the lack of markings there and how _blue_ they were without the gold – until he shook himself from his daze. "Right. I guess you'll probably be coming with us on our mission tomorrow then, so I'll have to give you the lesson now as well…" he trailed of before nodding, to himself it seemed, and leading both the boys to a couch. Kakashi was still giving Arashi a suspicious look, but he didn't act on it now at least.

"'Rashi, you are aware that in the line of duty you may be captured and tortured for information, correct?" Arashi nodded. It had never happened to him, but he was aware of the possibility. "One of the first things a torture specialist will do is go for your mind. They will try to break you mentally, and if that doesn't work they will attack you physically."

"Er... well it's _torture_," Arashi gave his teacher a nonplussed look. "Of course they would do all that stuff."

"Yes... well, there is one sort of physical torture that we _can_ prevent, which is the main reason I'm talking about it right now," Minato continued. "As you're so young, it can't be expected that you will be able to resist torture, but the least that can be done is to prevent this type... anyway, I know you were taking lessons from Tsunade-hime. Did she ever say anything about nerves?"

"Yeah," responded Arashi. "Medics have to be able to numb nerves and make the body send out endorphins, plus she talked a bunch about nerve damage that can debilili – er, make it so shinobi can't use a limb or something. Paralyzing, you know? And she talked about some procedures that can fix nerves and a bunch of stuff about memory. I get the torture connection since nerves feel and all that, but it's kinda basic knowledge."

"Makes sense she wouldn't mention it to her class since ninjas generally get this taken care of when they go no their first really dangerous mission," Minato shook his head. "Right. So, you've had a hair pulled out before, I imagine. And it hurts like a bi– a lot. That's because each hair on your body has a nerve wrapped around the root. It's a very effective method of torture, and one that is fairly easy to prevent."

"So... you want me to shave off my peach fuzz?" His deadpan question made Minato roll his eyes.

"Not exactly. About fifty years before the Villages were all founded, a jutsu was invented that prevents hair growth. I was in the middle of teaching Kakashi how to do it when you got here."

"Don't only _girls_ shave their legs?"

Kakashi snorted. "If you'd rather have ever single bit of 'peach fuzz' pulled out..."

What an entirely _lovely_ thing for Arashi to be subjected to his first evening back from anti-sage training.

* * *

Crouching low, his eyes swept the broken land that stretched out before him. The mission was of a sort that he had never been on, but Arashi wouldn't complain. They were assigned to come to a battle field that had been picked over for survivors and try to decipher what techniques the opposition had used.

A guard had been stationed at the site and was glad to see the team had arrived, even though Arashi and Kakashi were so young. His sole duty was to ensure that Iwa didn't do exactly as Konoha was doing. Now that Team Bedhead had arrived, that duty was amended to having Minato seal up all the corpses into three separate scrolls: one for Iwa nin whose bodies were to be examined by ANBU: one for Konoha nin to be transported for burial: the last was for those who could not be told as one of the other and would be identified back in the village.

Arashi had seen dead bodies before, and he had killed before. Even discounting the fact that, when overridden with Kyuubi chakra, he had torn a few men limb from limb, he _had_ killed. That Akatsuki member had been utterly destroyed by his Rasenshuriken, and traveling with Jiraiya brought plenty of attacks by enemy shinobi.

But he hated death. He hated the sight of it, the smell of it, the act of dying and killing... he didn't want people to die. Sometimes, he knew, it was better that they die. Madmen like the Akatsuki and Orochimaru were better off dead – or, rather, the world would be better for their deaths – and that killing people was necessary to protect his precious people. That didn't mean he had to _like_ it though.

As it just so happened, when he saw the corpses that were smelly and splotchy from sitting in the early spring sun for days on end, Arashi was physically ill. Kakashi looked a little green around the gills as well, but he didn't even do so much as cover his mask with his hand and went immediately to surveying the area. Arashi had to wait for his stomach to settle – and for the rotting corpses to be put away – before he could start. Not that he really knew what to do anyway.

Still, it didn't take much effort to discover that some of the earth had been scorched by lightning techniques rather than fire, and these were techniques used by the Iwanin since the affected area was masked by a lot of upended earth. Minato ended up turning the entire think into a field lesson, showing Arashi and Kakashi different signs of struggle, how to distinguish the marks made my taijutsu versus regular walking or running.

It wasn't a dangerous mission, as far as Arashi could tell. It took them three days travel time to get there, they would spend two days at the battle site, and they would head back immediately after that. They were in one of the countries that bordered both Iwa and Konoha – Arashi couldn't be bothered to know which one it was – and there was little risk involved with the operation itself.

If Arashi had paid any attention to the Shinobi Handbook, he would have known that Rule Number One was not to be tempted.

Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.

When an Iwa scout team attacked them in the clearing on the second day, Arashi was far more surprised than either Kakashi or Minato. They arrived swiftly, and it was only instinct that stopped Arashi from taking a kick to the head. Kakashi was faring well against his opponent, and Minato was completely overwhelming his, but apparently Arashi had been pegged as the weak link – two shinobi were working seamlessly to take him out as fast as possible.

There was no time to strike back, or even to create any bunshin. A fistful of shuriken came at Arashi in a spread while a kick arced toward his stomach, and even as he dodged the weapons and blocked the kick, the shuriken-thrower was racing through seals that Arashi didn't have time to notice because he had to block a series of strong punches and kicks.

Suddenly, all Arashi could see was yellow; the second opponent had obviously completed his jutsu, and Arashi thought he was going to die. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for whatever was going to happen... he heard two surprised shouts, two thuds, and then he opened his eyes to find that Minato was standing in front of him, the two Iwanin were on the ground, and there was a strange three-pronged kunai lodged in the ground not half a foot in front of them.

In another thrown kunai and flash of yellow, Minato vanished, and the battle was over not a minute after it started.

It wasn't until they were turning in their mission report that Arashi realized he had witnessed the birth of a legend.

**Author's Note: I hope this all made some form of sense. It made sense in my head, and trying to put it into words that Naruto/Arashi could understand was kind of difficult. If it didn't... er, well, it will be sort of explained again probably. Maybe I'll just find a way to explain it in an author's note later or something. As to the hair thing, it's true and I'm honestly surprised no one has done that (in here I only really mentioned it because it really irks me and I can imagine that a team going on their first might-be-captured mission being like that).**

**I started on this late, and even then I barely touched it... I know. I'm horrid. Don't be mad though, because the sun punished me yesterday (spent five hours planting flowers at the Peace Park under direct sunlight... and I burn easily). What got my butt into gear was the fact that this hit 100000 reads :D HPatHC didn't reach that many until two weeks after it was completed! So I'm quite pleased.**

**Unfortunately, my math final is in a couple weeks, and I have portfolio work to do for Writer's Workshop, so I'll be pumping out a bunch of originals this month instead of writing fanfic. I'll still devote myself mostly to this though. I started posting my Harry Potter/Ouran/xxxHOLiC fic if anyone is interested (doubtful), so that will be splitting my attention some. This is still my focus story, but I have more than just fanfiction on my plate; you have no idea how much I'm looking forward to June.**

(1) This is a fact; small children can remember information for several minutes without paying it much attention while an adult would remember it for maybe half a minute, tops.

(2) The human skull is nearly as big as it will get at age 10. (Or something like that; I can't be arsed to look through my psych book to find the exact information.)


	14. ADOPTED

76suzume is adopting this fic. Or writing something heavily based on it. I wasn't too clear on that point. Anyway, feel free to go check it out y'all.


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